Orders of the Day
	 — 
	Sustainable and Secure Buildings Bill

As amended in the Standing Committee, considered.

New Clause 1
	 — 
	Buildings of Special Historical or Architectural Interest

'After section 1 of the Building Act 1984 (c. 55) insert—
	"1A   Buildings of special historical or architectural interest
	(1)   In making building regulations the Secretary of State shall have regard, in particular, to the desirability of preserving the character of protected buildings that are of special historical or architectural interest.
	(2)   In this section 'protected buildings' means—
	(a)   listed buildings within the meaning of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (see section 1(5) of that Act); and
	(b)   buildings situated in areas designated as conservation areas under section 69 of that Act.".'.—[Mr. Stunell.]
	Brought up, and read the First time.

Andrew Stunell: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
	The Bill spent two days in Committee. There was a broad consensus on its aims. Perhaps the consensus on its contents was not quite so complete, and one or two of my proposals that went into Committee bit the dust on the way through. The liveliest debate was on the subject of how my Bill might affect historic buildings. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley) moved an amendment in Committee that secured support from all sides, but after debate she helpfully withdrew it, which allowed further consideration of how we might proceed to deal with the concerns that were raised.
	New clause 1 is the outcome of that further consideration. It follows a round of meetings with the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North and English Heritage, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and other organisations interested in heritage matters. Earlier this week I attended a meeting with representatives of English Heritage, who tell me that they strongly support the new clause and the Bill as a whole, with its general intentions of improving the security of the building stock, its crime resistance and its environmental sustainability.
	The clause requires the Secretary of State to have regard to the need to preserve the character of protected buildings when making regulations. Of course, he already does. In part L of the building regulations there are already specific solutions to some of the issues presented by the need to preserve the character of buildings while still allowing them to be fit for purpose, safe to use and, in the context of the Bill, sustainable. In any case, before any regulations came into force, there would be a round of consultations, and organisations and bodies with concerns about heritage buildings would be in a good position to make their concerns known. The clause gives a statutory basis for organisations such as English Heritage and others with a legitimate concern to have their views heard.
	The clause requires the Minister to have regard to protected buildings, which it defines as those that are listed, in what one might call the anorak's jargon, and those that are in conservation areas. I have been told that there are about 370,000 listed buildings in England and Wales, although that includes some rather odd animals such as telephone kiosks and grottos in ornamental parks. However, as we discussed on Second Reading, there is considerable difficulty in this country in knowing what a building is and how many we have. That was also the subject of discussion in Committee.
	The figure of 370,000 is at the top end. In reality, there are probably about 350,000 listed buildings, as might be commonly understood in the Chamber. Of those, about 9,000 are listed as grade I—that is, of the very highest quality both inside and outside. About 20,000 are listed as grade II*, which means they are of good quality outside, with some interesting features inside. More than 300,000 others are listed as grade II, which is what the man in the street would recognise as a listed building—one which, looked at from the outside, has a bit of character and history. That is one category that would be included in the clause.
	Secondly, the clause covers buildings in conservation areas. There are about 9,000 conservation areas in this country, though interestingly enough, there is no requirement for local authorities to notify anybody when they designate conservation areas. That is probably a good thing, but it makes it hard to be sure how many there are and what is inside them.
	Many of the listed buildings in the first category are, of course, in conservation areas, and the overlap between the two categories is large.
	By definition, listed buildings and buildings in conservation areas form a unique part of our country's environment, and in many cases they are cultural cornerstones—one has only to examine parts of London to see their impact on our national identity and sense of Britishness, or maybe Englishness.
	Historic buildings also produce economic benefits because they generate tourism and travel. There were 63 million visits to historic visitor attractions last year, plus many more visits to picturesque villages and ancient town centres, so buildings have a significant employment and economic value.
	My Bill properly takes account of the special needs and concerns of those who manage historic buildings. I want to make it clear that the new clause will not exempt such buildings from building regulations, but it will ensure that when the building regulations emerge, they must take account of special needs and characteristics. That might be in the form of approved documents, of which there are already examples, containing standard solutions that can be taken off the shelf and adapted so that they work unobtrusively, even on sensitive historic buildings. Alternatively, regulations might be drawn up to permit flexibility, perhaps taking a whole building approach to compliance rather than requiring specific elements of the building to comply. The objective that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley) sought in Committee can clearly be achieved and in a straightforward and simple way, and the new clause provides the foundations for that.

Nick Palmer: I apologise for missing the hon. Gentleman's opening remarks. Will regulations produced under the new clause exempt specific buildings, or will the procedure be more flexible than that? Will buildings such as telephone kiosks be ignored because they cannot be brought into line?

Andrew Stunell: The hon. Gentleman's question is on the second or third tier of decision taking. I appreciate that he was not privy to our discussions on Second Reading and in Committee. My Bill enables regulations to be made in the future, but it does not prescribe them. The new clause does not prescribe regulations, but it states that the Secretary of State shall have regard to the particular needs of historic buildings when he considers regulations. The example raised by the hon. Gentleman is precisely the kind of issue that must be weighed up when a specific regulation is considered.
	Approved documents are one of the two routes on regulations. They are on-the-shelf solutions that somebody can take down and use, and they might need to include one or two models that are suitable for historic buildings. The other route is to say, "You do not have to comply with any specific set of proposals as long as at the end of it you have got a building that does not leak heat, that stands up and from which people can escape in the case of fire." I hope that I have reassured the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer), but if not, I am sure that he will come back to me.
	The new clause is a useful safeguard, although I have seen little evidence that it will be needed, because all the signs are that that point is taken into account when regulations are drawn up, regardless of the Government or the individual Minister. I have responded to the points made in Committee, and I hope that the new clause will reassure not only hon. Members, but organisations such as English Heritage, which were keen to see it. Bearing in mind the all-party support in Committee, I hope that the new clause is an uncontroversial addition to my Bill, which is now in a form approved by parliamentary counsel, and I hope that the House will agree it rapidly today.

John Hayes: I do not intend to detain the House for long, because we have a lot of business, all of which is of great significance. It is worth having a word, however, given that the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) properly said that the Bill received all-party support in Committee, where I was able to wax lyrical at considerable length about the Bill's importance in relation to the marvellous work done by the Prince of Wales on this subject.
	I shall make three points. First, I shall amplify the point about enabling legislation. The new clause enables and does not oblige, and in that sense it is a helpful and measured addition to the Bill, given that it does not necessarily create a great deal more regulation, which is always an issue with this kind of private Member's Bill. There has ever been a certain tension between the desire to protect and the problem of over-regulation, and I must say that the hon. Member for Hazel Grove has recognised that tension in much of what he has said and written about his Bill.
	Secondly, the new clause is consistent with the rest of the Bill. Sustainability is about having proper concern for the desirability of preserving the character of protected buildings that are of special or architectural interest. It would be quite wrong to see the thrust of the rest of Bill outside the context, which the hon. Member for Hazel Grove has set out today, of the footprint that buildings make upon the landscape; of their relationship with the history of the communities in which they sit; and of their balance with other structures around them. It is important that we use this opportunity to reinforce the significance of buildings of historical importance.
	Thirdly, the objective is achievable. The Bill is in line with best practice, which, as the hon. Member for Hazel Grove properly said, we often enjoy owing to the good work of organisations such as English Heritage. However, I shall sound a warning note: he was, as ever, measured, but concerns have been raised in my constituency and elsewhere that the prospective changes to how buildings are identified, which he did not mention, may put more buildings at risk. I am not making a judgment on that point, but that view has been expressed.
	I ought to have declared this interest at the beginning of my contribution: I live in a listed building. I must say that it is not one of the first 9,000 listed buildings, and it is not even one of the next 20,000 listed buildings—I may be a star, but my home is not starred—but it is one of the 300,000 ordinary listed buildings. I have a personal interest in the matter, which I care about for that reason and for many others. There is concern that our system of listing might be diluted by some of the changes that have been mentioned. As in Committee, I draw the attention of the Minister and the hon. Member for Hazel Grove to the at-risk registers, and to the large number of buildings that have sadly been added to those registers and which remain of considerable concern. The hon. Gentleman will have watched assiduously—because he is the sort of man who would—the programme "Restoration", which highlighted many interesting buildings that were at risk. I understand that there is to be a new series. That exercise provided a small illustration of a much bigger problem. In most of our constituencies, there will be an interesting building that is of architectural significance and adds to the landscape, but is at risk. I mention that as a caveat to the hon. Gentleman's remarks.
	I am glad to associate myself with the new clause, and I am confident that this particular Minister will take it on board with relish.

Sue Doughty: I, too, strongly support the new clause, which is intended to remove a potential barrier in the Bill in relation to environmental issues such as fuel poverty and climate change.
	Historical properties and conservation areas account for an enormous amount of domestic tourism, and it is important that they be allowed to thrive. Guildford has a conservation area in its centre. Other cities, such as Bath and York, are able to offer tourism to people with a wide variety of interests. For example, one family member may want to look at the architecture while another wants to go shopping. Such dual-purpose visits bring money into the economy of an area and the UK as a whole. It is important that those high-quality buildings attract investment when renovation is needed. There are a plethora of small properties in conservation areas such as the Cotswolds and the Yorkshire moors. Together, they contribute a great deal to the cultural wealth of the area, as well as to its economy.
	I hope that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) suggested, we will be able to find a range of standard solutions. For example, if the roof of a building is being renovated, that offers an opportunity to increase insulation. Businesses could specialise in solutions that consider the building as a whole, to ensure that it plays its part in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
	That is particularly applicable to smaller buildings. I am thinking about a row of shops in Guildford—delightful buildings. If one shop needs renovating, those on either side are also hidden by bulky scaffolding and often passers-by cannot see whether they are in business. They are not chain stores, but individual craftspeople. There is a hat shop next door to an absolutely delightful cake-decorating shop—that is where the bride's mother goes when she is planning a wedding. Lengthy renovations with scaffolding everywhere can detract from the vibrancy of the area.
	That is why I am keen to have standard solutions to ensure that when renovations take place, people know what work they will be doing before the scaffolding goes up. Then, the work can be done quickly and effectively while retaining the character and charm of such areas, which we all want to enjoy.
	I will be delighted if this thoughtful and sensible new clause goes forward with the rest of the Bill to become a helpful change in the building regulations.

Nick Palmer: I, too, support the Bill and the principle of the new clause. I am particularly enticed by the vision of the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) living in his historical grotto: we would not wish to disturb his lair.
	My only reservation is that, as the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) said, listed buildings are a very varied collection of animals. Often, the owner of a listed building finds himself in a catch-22 situation whereby he is forbidden to make the changes that are needed to make it economical to run, or to knock it down, but unable to maintain it in its present state. I hope that the new regulations are not applied in such a way as to make that dilemma worse.
	Conversely, though, we need to ensure that we do not create a large loophole in the Bill by having a vast category of buildings for which it becomes the normal practice that we do not bother to try to improve insulation and take the other desirable measures mentioned in the Bill.
	The new clause strikes a reasonable balance by allowing for special considerations for such buildings, but not insisting on their application in every case. Despite the hon. Gentleman's clarification, I think that he would agree that cases will arise in which a local authority would, as with other buildings, feel it open to it not to press for any particular modifications. The whole Bill is about giving an authority the option to do so, rather than requiring it to do so. For some buildings—and perhaps grottoes—the necessary modifications will not be practical.
	With that qualification, I warmly support the new clause.

Phil Hope: It is good to be here to debate the Bill on Report, and I hope that it will be successful in receiving its Third Reading. I will say more about the Bill overall when we reach that stage, but for now I shall address my remarks specifically to the new clause.
	An amendment proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley) in Committee regarding the desirability of preserving the historic or architectural interest of certain buildings was withdrawn for further consideration because it was felt that its scope was too wide, although the principle behind it received general support. That is reflected in what hon. Members have said this morning. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) for tabling the new clause, which the Government consider honours the principle that received cross-party support in Committee.
	The new clause says that the special character of listed buildings and buildings in conservation areas should be taken into account by the Secretary of State in making building regulations. The difficulty that we had with the amendment in Committee was that its definition of protected buildings included those in national parks and in areas of outstanding beauty. That remit was regarded as too wide, as it took no account of the character of the buildings themselves, only of their location.
	The new clause recognises current practice in proposing new or amended building regulations. In doing so, we do not consider general exemptions for historic buildings. I want to say to my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer) that a general exemption is precisely the kind of loophole that we do not want. That is why the enabling power is worded as it is; the regulations resulting from it will deal with the matter.
	Where appropriate, the approved documents that support the regulations, which will be drawn up and published at the same time as the draft regulations, will give guidance on how the requirements should be applied to such buildings. For example, the current documents for part L, which deals with conservation of fuel and power, and part M, which covers access to and use of buildings, both contain guidance on how the requirements in those parts should be applied to historic buildings or those in conservation areas. As I said in Committee, in relation to individual buildings, local authority conservation officers and local authority building control officers will discuss how best the requirements might be applied to historic buildings or those in conservation areas.
	It is widely felt that this pragmatic approach works well both in achieving compliance with the building regulations and in preserving the historic or architectural interest of protected buildings. The new clause will not disturb those arrangements. I am delighted that the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes), living in whatever folly or grotto he lives in, is able to support the Bill. He reminded us in Committee of his concern for beauty, saying:
	"I, too, am sympathetic to the amendment. It is vital that we strike the balance that my hon. Friend described, but I err towards that balance being struck in favour of beauty."—[Official Report, Standing Committee C, 3 March 2004; c. 21.]
	He then gave us a very good description of what he meant by beauty, which impressed us all, even though it was slightly irrelevant to the Bill. The hon. Member for Guildford (Sue Doughty) also served on the Committee, and she made an important point today about tourism in conservation areas. The detailed points that she made about the regulations are obviously not a matter for the Bill at this stage, but will be a matter for consideration under the building regulations. No doubt when we go out to consultation on any new regulations resulting from the Bill, those points will be taken into account.

John Hayes: I had not been aware until this morning that the Minister had become such an aficionado of my Tory aestheticism. The hon. Member for Guildford (Sue Doughty) made a good point about tourism, but we must never assume that purely utilitarian justifications have to be made for aesthetic value. It is for the love of beauty, and perhaps for the beauty of art, that we should endorse the desire of the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) to put this clause into the Bill.

Phil Hope: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I think that we both have a similar vision of the kind of beauty that we wish to see retained in our historic buildings and conservation areas.
	Concern has been expressed that the new clause might affect compliance with the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. That was not raised in Committee, but I want to put on record that that is certainly not the Government's view of the intention of the new clause, and I can assure the House that we would not propose regulations that had that affect. As the Minister responsible for building regulations, one of the interesting requirements of the job is the need to reach a balance between various dilemmas. Later clauses in the Bill cover secure buildings, and on Second Reading we discussed how that security needed to be reconciled with ensuring that people could get out of a building easily if it were to catch fire. We have to reconcile different kinds of regulations for different purposes.
	We certainly do not want the regulations that we would be empowered to make under the Bill to have a negative effect in regard to the Disability Discrimination Act. Building regulations are goal-based and, within the goals, there will be sufficient flexibility both to ensure that the requirements of the Act are satisfied and to preserve the historic character of buildings.
	I am happy to say that the Government welcome the new clause, and support its standing part of the Bill.

Andrew Stunell: I should like to the thank hon. Members who have supported the new clause for the kind words that they have uttered on its behalf. I do not want to waste the time of the House this morning.
	I very much enjoyed what the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) had to say in Committee. I did point out to him that the Prince of Wales actually did not like some of the buildings now being listed, but there we go. That is how it is. My hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Sue Doughty) made an important point about the value of our historic heritage in many different dimensions. She then put her finger on another problem, which was also raised by the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, which I would describe as that of regeneration. Practically everyone knows examples of buildings that are falling into disuse or decay because of a lack of investment possibilities. The new clause will minimise the number of occasions on which that problem might arise. It will not generate any funds, but it represents an improvement on the current situation, which I hope will give some reassurance to those two hon. Members.
	The hon. Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer) made an interesting point about the way in which the regulations might inhibit investment in listed buildings. I believe that planning regulations will be the more likely barrier than building regulations. I honestly cannot see that this is likely to be an issue in relation to building regulations.
	A point that has not been raised in the debate so far, but which is nevertheless relevant, relates to what is called embedded energy. Demolishing and rebuilding might seem an easy option for a dilapidated and decaying historic building, but it represents a very poor deal in terms of carbon emissions. It is possible to spend quite a lot on refurbishment to produce a building with very respectable qualities of sustainability, and still to have spent less than it would have cost to demolish and rebuild. That would also produce a more sustainable outcome than building something brand new, whatever its standard. So a proper understanding of sustainability, which is now beginning to grow, suggests that refurbishment and regeneration often represent a better way of improving sustainability than demolition and rebuilding to a completely new standard.
	The Minister was reassuring when he confirmed that this measure does not provide a loophole; it does not exempt any building from any building regulation. It only requires those regulations to heed the circumstances of listed buildings and buildings in conservation areas. At present, building regulations apply to approximately 1 per cent. of the building stock that is built or significantly altered each year. They do not touch the other 99 per cent. My Bill makes it possible, in certain circumstances, for the other 99 per cent. to come within the remit of building regulations, in terms of sustainability. The new clause gives special consideration to 5 per cent. of that 99 per cent., so the Bill will still capture, with full force, more than 90 per cent. of this country's building stock. It will give some limited special consideration to buildings of historic and architectural interest, amounting to about 5 per cent. of our building stock, and I strongly commend the Bill to the House.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

Clause 6
	 — 
	Registers of Information and Documents to be Kept by Local Authorities

John Hayes: I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 6, line 30, at end insert—
	'(4A)   The registers shall contain such information and documents that relate to the requirements placed on local authorities under the Sustainable Energy Act 2003, outlining any achievements beyond the statutory minimum in pursuit of warm homes and energy conservation.'.
	This amendment will add to the Bill. I have listened carefully to the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell), and you will remember, Mr. Deputy Speaker, from you assiduous reading of these matters, that he expressed a similar kind of sentiment in Committee. I think that it is fair to say that he was enthusiastic for the energy conservation issues associated with the Bill to be in line with existing legislative requirements, and that he was seeking to press the Government a little on that issue. We on the Conservative Benches are passionate in our opposition to fuel poverty and in our defence of warm homes. The hon. Gentleman's Bill provides once again the opportunity to tweak the Government's performance a little.
	Members on both sides of the House who are associated with warm homes campaigns are doubtful whether the Government will reach their targets. I mentioned that in Committee at greater length and I do not intend to take the House's time by repeating myself. Suffice it to say that the ambitious targets that have been set are unlikely to be achieved unless we make real and significant changes to the way in which we deal with new buildings and with existing ones. Best practice allows buildings to become highly energy efficient, but, sadly, best practice is by no means the norm, even in the case of the most modern buildings. Through improved insulation, improved ventilation, and the whole energy conservation culture, which can be embedded in design, we can, through the Bill, press the Government towards a position in which those targets might be realisable.
	I know that there was a certain resistance from the Government when the hon. Gentleman adopted that kind of tone in the earlier stages of the Bill, and I understand that: it is much easier in opposition to make these bold claims than in government, and much easier when one is not answerable for missed targets. There is no point in us not facing up to that truth. It is the role of the good Opposition, however, and even of a minor party—I say this to the hon. Member for Hazel Grove—to force the Government's hand, to put appropriate pressure on them, and to articulate the concerns of the House and of people outside this place who specialise in these matters, and who share the passion for the fight against fuel poverty, which is almost intrinsic in Tory thinking and relates to Liberal thinking, too, at least to some degree.
	It is therefore important that we once again challenge the Minister, through the amendment, on why he will not go that one step further on the road towards achieving warm, secure homes, fit for the purpose, for all our people. I commend the amendment to the House.

Brian White: As the amendment refers to the Act that I put through as a private Member's Bill last year, I concur with the hon. Gentleman's sentiments. As one of the roles of Government Back Benchers is to push our Front-Bench team to go that bit further than the permanent government of the civil service would like, I ask the Minister to take on board the sentiments of this amendment, as there are a number of concerns in relation to the way that the Government are tackling fuel poverty, which I know that he shares. I accept, however, that the Government are doing good work, such as that announced this week in the energy efficiency review, all of which is to their credit, and about which we should be talking much more.
	As the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) pointed out, there are a number of concerns that the targets set by the Government will not be met. To those of us who believe that one of the Government's achievements is taking people out of fuel poverty, and taking children out of poverty, this kind of measure is important. The amendment is not necessarily the right way forward, but certainly, the sentiments behind it are. I seek assurances from the Minister that the issues raised in my Act last year, such as linking the work of local authorities with that of the Government, and backing up the work of the Home Energy Conservation Act 1995 and that of the warm homes programme, and getting the balance and synergies between those right, are recognised as important. When the Government supported my Act last year, they recognised that, and when the Minister replies, I hope that he will also recognise that that work needs to be taken forward urgently, as was recognised earlier in the week in the energy statement.

Nick Palmer: I must admit to being slightly puzzled by the amendment. Most of us would not rank the introduction of annual reports on progress, which came soon after the election, among the magnificent achievements of the Labour Government. I do not remember the Conservative party being at the forefront of those welcoming the publication of such documents. I see that the amendment would require local authorities to identify
	"any achievements beyond the statutory minimum in pursuit of warm homes and energy conservation."
	That appears to be an invitation to local authorities to wax lyrical about their splendid achievements in the area at the expense of the people who pay for their time.

Brian White: One of the reasons that the provision to make sure that local authorities report was included in my Sustainable Energy Act 2003 is that a number of local authorities are lagging behind. Although the best local authorities are doing an excellent job, a number need to be dragged into the arena to deliver some of the programmes that we all want.

Nick Palmer: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. We must strike a balance between central direction, which will achieve the necessary progress, including in areas in which local authorities might think that they have other priorities, and allowing a degree of local flexibility. What worries me about the amendment is that basically it does not raise the minimum standards, and nor does it apply any standard reporting function that would enable us to collect statistics or assessments nationally. It is simply an invitation to local authorities to chat about their achievements. Given the intention of the Bill, I honestly do not think that anything will be achieved by that.
	I accept fully that the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) who moved the amendment is motivated entirely by wanting to stimulate the best possible practice in local authorities and to encourage them to take an opportunity to boast about their achievements. My experience of local authorities—except mine, of course—is that they are only too keen to boast about their achievements at great length, which is perhaps a general characteristic of political organisations. We do not therefore need statutory encouragement for them to do so.

John Hayes: In order that the hon. Gentleman might abbreviate his remarks, may I make absolutely clear what I thought that I had made sufficiently clear by inference earlier—that this is a probing amendment? It is designed to press the Government to move closer to the standards that are absolutely necessary if they are to meet their 2010 targets. In the hope that the hon. Gentleman might recognise that, and be brief, I say to him that 1.4 million social sector homes in England are failing to meet the decent home standards, and the vast majority of those—about 80 per cent., or 1.1 million—fail on thermal insulation grounds. On that basis, the Government will not meet the 2010 targets, and we are pressing the Minister, in an extraordinarily moderate way, a little further towards his own target.

Nick Palmer: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's wish to get away early or deal with whatever other pressing business he may have, but I feel that we should look at the amendments as they stand. Although he has hinted that he may be thinking of withdrawing amendment No. 1, which he would be wise to do, if he tables an amendment, we must be able to discuss it on its own terms.
	We recognise the need to make progress with objectives to which we all at least pay lip service and that I hope we would wholeheartedly support, but what is required is a steady increase in minimum standards, accompanied by the flexibility that we discussed on new clause 1. We should not encourage local authorities simply to make statements that are not viable in cash terms.
	In a previous life, I worked in statistics. I remember attempting to assess the progress of projects, and I remember that each of those reporting reported in a different way. That is a statistical nightmare with which everyone in Government is familiar, and I would not like to contribute to it now. I hope that the hon. Gentleman, whose objectives I respect and support, will withdraw his amendment.

Andrew Stunell: Some tempting bait has been dangled in the water with mention of the Sustainable Energy Act 2003, which began as a private Member's Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Brian White). The amendment is clearly a good thing in the sense that motherhood and apple pie is a good thing, and I approve of the idea of a report on progress, but there are one or two problems with it. For one thing, it would amend clause 6, not clause 5. Clause 5 deals with reports; clause 6 concerns the lodging of documents for inspection.
	I wish the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) had had an opportunity to try out the idea in Committee, as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley) did with her proposals. That would have enabled us to deal with a provision that worked and was appropriately placed. The Minister might still be shaking his head, but at least the amendment would relate to the right part of the Bill. If it had referred to clause 5, I might have felt able to be rather more vigorous in my defence of the hon. Gentleman's defence of the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East.
	There is no doubt that we need more progress in the implementation of the 2003 Act. Along with other Members in all political parties, I have criticised the Government for not setting proper targets under the Act and for all the shortfalls in performance, but sadly the amendment is not a viable means of dealing with that.
	I hope that we have made useful points. I hope that the Minister will go back and say, "They gave me hell over this—what are we doing?" The Government need a good nudge. They need to be reminded that Members throughout the House are concerned about the issue, and feel that the Government have been somewhat lethargic. I also hope, however, that the hon. Gentleman will not press his amendment, which I fear might jeopardise the wider project represented by the Bill.

Phil Hope: For reasons given by various Members today and for others that I will explain shortly, the Government will oppose the amendment because we think it unnecessary. That does not mean that we are not keen to pursue our targets relating to fuel poverty and warm homes. I realise that this is a probing amendment, and I will respond to it in those terms. As for my being given hell this morning, I prefer to say that Members have given me a good push forward, while supporting my enthusiasm for better fuel and energy efficiency and attacking fuel poverty on behalf of the Government.
	The amendment is unnecessary because the Sustainable Energy Act 2003 already provides the necessary flexibility to ensure that compliance takes place clearly and openly. That was the aim of all who were involved with the Act during its passage through the House. Section 4 gives the Government in England and the Welsh Assembly Government discretionary power to direct energy conservation authorities to improve energy efficiency in residential accommodation. It also requires those authorities to take action to implement cost-effective and practicable measures to achieve such improvement, while having regard to the eradication of fuel poverty. The Act gives the Secretary of State power to provide local authorities with guidance on their duties, and the authorities have a duty to have regard to it.

Brian White: When is the guidance likely to be produced?

Phil Hope: Regrettably, I am not responsible for the decision making of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, so I cannot give my hon. Friend that information; but I will convey his enthusiasm for such guidance to my colleagues in that Department.
	Like my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer), I find it hard to believe that a local authority that had not only managed to meet its obligations under the 2003 Act but exceeded them would be reluctant to publicise its achievement. Surely it would be singing its own praises loud and clear. I imagine that it would take great pleasure in including all the details of its achievement through whatever monitoring or reporting system it had eventually agreed to.
	An important part of the Act provides that any use of the powers it confers should be considered carefully, and that use of the powers and final implementation of the Act should involve consultation with representatives of local government. That approach is consistent with our policy on freedoms and flexibilities for local authorities. The Government would not issue such directions—thus placing a new burden on the authorities—without providing the funds needed to meet the new requirements.
	As the Government have said on many occasions, we consider the powers potentially useful, in that they could help us to meet our energy efficiency and fuel poverty objectives. That was clearly demonstrated by the Government's wholehearted support for the legislation during its passage.
	I agree with the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) that the placing of the amendment is odd. The registers established by clause 6 will contain information relating to the Building Act 1984 on individual buildings, whereas the amendment would require general, local authority-wide information to be placed somewhere in a register that was not designed to receive it. Even if we supported the amendment, we would feel that it was in the wrong place in the Bill.
	I should explain to my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe, who was not on the Standing Committee, that clause 5 obliges the Government to produce a biennial report to Parliament on progress in the sustainability of building stock. He asked about the value of that, and the extent to which it would create pressure and momentum for improvement.
	I shall not go into all the details that we discussed in Committee of other efforts that the Government are making to improve building stock, but we have PPS1 and PPS22, the sustainability of buildings task group—which is about to publish a report—and many other initiatives showing our enthusiasm for the direction in which the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) has pushed me. A great deal is going on and we are making progress. The amendment is unnecessary to our achievement of our aims.

John Hayes: The Minister, as I anticipated, has responded by acknowledging that this is indeed a probing amendment, designed to drive him towards ever greater efforts to achieve the targets set. He has given us an undertaking today that he is re-energised by the pressure from his Back Benchers—so admirably represented by the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Brian White)—and from the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell). The hon. Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer) has not been following these matters closely until today, perhaps because he has been out buying shoes—although I resisted the temptation of drawing him into the earlier debate about aesthetics, because I thought that he would be less than a front-runner in that department, judging by today's footwear. However, although he is less certain on these matters, I am satisfied that the Minister has got the message, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
	Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

John Hayes: I beg to move amendment No. 2, in clause 6, page 7, line 3, at end insert—
	'91B   Accessible housing registers for the disabled
	(1)   Each local housing authority must maintain an "accessible housing register"
	(2)   The accessible housing register must outline—
	(a)   current and proposed accessible residential properties in the local authority area (whether purpose-built or adapted) with details of the access features relating to each property; and
	(b)   the provisions available for disabled people who require accessible housing,
	(3)   For the purpose of this section "accessible residential properties" means dwellings, flats and HMOs which provide a reasonable means of access and ease of use for disabled people, or which may be easily adapted to provide such access and ease of use.'.
	Amendment No. 2 relates to registers of accessible housing for disabled people. That is not a new idea, and it is widely supported by disabled organisations and charities, as well as by many Members. I raised the matter in the Committee on the Housing Bill; the amendment is almost a repetition of the new clause that we then tabled.
	Briefly, the argument for such registers is as follows. There is no doubt that all Members want to ensure that adequate housing is available for people with disabilities. That housing, often by necessity, must be adapted so that a person's needs can be properly catered for. Adaptations that take place in the cause of providing good housing for disabled people are varied. Someone with a spinal injury who is a wheelchair user will require very different adaptations from someone with partial sight. A range of disabilities requires a range of approaches.
	Such adaptations can be expensive, and the current problem is that local authorities often adapt a house to satisfy a tenant who subsequently dies or moves on, and the new tenant might not necessarily be able to access the same property. The match between disability and suitable adapted housing is often poor, which leads to houses being re-adapted for a person with a different disability, or de-adapted—if such a word exists—for someone with no disability at all, or only a minor one. That is a costly process, which wastes many millions of pounds for local authorities up and down the country.

Nick Palmer: rose—

John Hayes: I give way to the hon. Gentleman, who is about to offer a riposte to my earlier rebuke.

Nick Palmer: Not at all. I would hesitate to compete with the hon. Gentleman's sartorial elegance, but I am less certain about his drafting elegance. There are 41,000 homes in my constituency. Is he seriously suggesting that the local authority should assess and maintain a register of each one, including "dwellings, flats and HMOs", to see whether it is accessible—whether purpose-built or adapted—and what provisions are made for disabled people to access it? How many hundreds of additional local civil servants does he think that Broxtowe council would require to implement that proposal?

John Hayes: I can see that despite the hon. Gentleman's good will, he has not made a close study of the matter. I am not surprised at that; he is a busy man and cannot always take as much time as he would like to advance the interests of disabled people. If he had made a close study of the matter, he would know that in those parts of the country where such schemes have been adopted, there have been substantial savings to local authorities. The cost of setting up and running a register has been found, for example in Bradford, to be considerably less than the savings made by not having to re-adapt homes. I am not simply advancing my proposal in the interests of disabled people because of a proper concern for them; I advance it because it is highly cost-effective for local authorities to ensure a better match between tenants and available properties.

Hugo Swire: I agree with my hon. Friend's proposal. In my local authority in East Devon there is increasing pressure to comply with Government regulations on providing housing for disabled people, although there is not necessarily the financial wherewithal. If we moved towards a local register, it would not only save money in the long term but make it much easier to move people who need that sort of housing around in the constituency, without having to spend vast amounts of money each and every time they have to be housed.

John Hayes: Yes, as my hon. Friend implies, the figures for the possible savings are impressive. It is certainly true that moving people around, as he puts it, is costly and painful to those concerned, and the savings themselves make a case for my proposal. Local authority estimates from Bradford suggest that savings may be in the range of £200,000 to £400,000, and some estimate that those savings may in fact be of more than £500,000. Of course, that will vary from place to place depending on the nature of the local available accommodation.
	This idea was supported by Members on both sides of the Housing Bill Committee—I draw particular attention to the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney), who is an advocate of a similar proposal—and at the very least, the Government must consider the matter further. The Minister for Housing and Planning, who is sitting in his place because he takes these matters seriously, and who saw my name on the screen and rushed into the Chamber, acknowledged when I made my proposal in Committee that it was something that any Government would want to consider seriously.
	My argument, therefore, is not partisan; nor is it trivial. It is born of a desire to do what is right, but it is also to do something that can be implemented cost-effectively, as the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer) properly suggested.

Matthew Green: The hon. Gentleman will know that when a similar amendment was tabled to the Housing Bill it had our broad support. However, I hope that he rapidly describes this as a probing amendment because, if my reading of it is right, it applies to all houses, not just local authority and social housing. I think that the latter is what he means, but the amendment in fact seems to apply to all houses, including privately owned ones. I am sure that he would not particularly want his local authority to maintain a register of whether his property, which we have discovered is listed, has been adapted for disabled purposes.

John Hayes: It is fair to say that this amendment, as the tone of my comments suggests, is, like my previous amendment, designed to probe. Given that the debate in Committee was received well by Members on both sides, and given that the Minister for Housing and Planning dealt with it with his characteristic generosity, we are once again looking to press the Government to examine the matter more carefully and perhaps to come back with their own proposals, which we could then consider with equal generosity. My proposal comes from a real demand from disabled organisations, and the cause is driven by a proper concern for vulnerable people, so the matter should be taken up with alacrity throughout the House.
	A pilot study in conjunction with local authorities might be a way forward. Far be it from me to suggest how the Government should run their affairs, but such a study could be done reasonably quickly and inexpensively, and with the co-operation of local authorities—of varying party political persuasions—that are already leading the way in this regard. If the Minister says today that that is already his intention—that he had plotted such a scheme before today's debate—my regard for him, which is already high, would reach proportions to which even he would be too modest to aspire.
	The Minister will doubtless reply in the spirit offered, and the hon. Member for Hazel Grove will know that the amendment is meant to be a helpful addition to his Bill. Neither he nor the Minister has anything to fear from it, and they have the opportunity to show that in some measure they can match the Conservative commitment, rooted in our party's proud history, to the most vulnerable in our society.

Nick Palmer: I am thinking of introducing a private Member's Bill to make it illegal to introduce probing amendments that do not make sense, but in the absence of such legislation, we have to deal with amendments as they stand. I note that in his response to the hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green), the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) evaded the question of whether his amendment is intended to cover all private housing. As it stands, it does, so we would have to investigate not only whether my house has disabled access, but whether his grotto does. Does any sensible party aspiring to government really wish to impose such a burden on local authorities?
	I entirely accept the hon. Gentleman's point that disabled organisations and sensible people everywhere want local authorities to keep track of the modifications made to local authority housing and social housing so that a match of the kind that he described can be encouraged. That would be entirely sensible and I should be surprised to discover that any local authority wanted to lose track of the improvements that it has made.
	I can also see that there is a case for encouraging private owners to register improvements of this kind; doing so might well help them to sell the property in due course. However, I cannot see the point in maintaining a vast local bureaucracy that pursues every modification to every house and flat in the local authority area to try in vain to keep track of whether Flat 17, Gregoria Mansions, for example, has been modified in a way that would be helpful to people with a particular problem.

John Hayes: I do not want to delay our proceedings, but the hon. Gentleman needs to acquaint himself with the Housing Act 1996, parts VI and VII of which already encourage housing authorities to maintain lists of properties suitable for disabled people and other special needs groups. More especially, in 1999, the National Disabled Persons Housing Service and the Housing Corporation described the benefits of such registers. The need now is for some statutory teeth to back up that good practice.
	The hon. Gentleman is not, I hope, making a fundamental criticism of my proposal. I have made it clear that this is a probing amendment. We are simply looking to the Government to give teeth to the good practice that has already been established by a range of organisations and in legislation.

Nick Palmer: The hon. Gentleman points to other legislation that encourages a register of suitable housing. However, as I understand it, his amendment would require local authorities to inspect every dwelling, flat and other building in the area to see whether it was purpose-built or adapted and what access features were available. He is a sensible man and I feel sure that, on reflection, he will agree that his amendment goes further than the provisions in existing Acts. Even probing amendments should be sensible in their own terms.

John Hayes: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman did not hear what I said. I repeat that the 1996 Act makes it absolutely clear that housing authorities are encouraged to maintain lists of properties suitable for disabled people and other special needs groups. It is true that such properties will be spread throughout a range of housing types. What we need to do is to achieve a better match, which requires that authorities take a lateral approach. The issue is not the extent of what they should do, but whether it can be done cost-effectively. That is why the current cost of not getting a good match needs to be properly measured against the cost of implementing a scheme. I do not say that the amendment is perfect—it is a probing amendment—but surely the hon. Gentleman will briefly acknowledge that the Government should at least look at this issue.

Nick Palmer: I entirely agree that it is sensible for local authorities to try to promote the availability of accessible housing and to keep track of the accessible housing of which they are aware. However, as it stands, the amendment would require local authorities to list current and proposed accessible residential properties and give details of the access features relating to each property.
	The amendment reflects a general pattern of behaviour in Her Majesty's Opposition. In general terms, they are in favour of fewer bureaucrats, less local expenditure and lower council tax. But in respect of any given issue, they want more bureaucrats and greater local authority expenditure, the inevitable consequence of which is higher council tax. Even in this relatively cosy environment of a Friday morning discussion of a Bill, we should not lose track of the fact that there is a fundamental inconsistency there. Let us promote the good practice of local authorities keeping track of accessible housing, but let us not impose on them the requirement to send an inspector round to every building to maintain a vast register that will be out of date the moment that it is printed.
	I urge the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment. We all accept its spirit—we need to promote disabled-friendly housing—but its means are unachievable. He suggested a pilot scheme and I suggest that he try to persuade his own local authority to run one. If he is successful, we look forward to his authority's announcement of next year's council tax and we will see whether we have to cap it.

Andrew Stunell: I thank the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) for introducing this amendment, which has obviously generated some interest. It is certainly worthy and full of the best intentions, but it suffers from a couple of serious flaws. In its original form, it related to the Housing Act 1996, which refers to local authority and registered social landlord housing and does not automatically apply to the private sector. By transposing the amendment to the Building Act 1984, which does apply to all buildings, he has created a problem for himself that he perhaps did not recognise at the time.
	There is also a problem with the drafting in that the provision applies to all houses in the private and the public sector and to all future houses as well as present ones. The amendment refers to
	"current and proposed accessible residential properties",
	so presumably a scan of the planning list and applications would be needed. Overall, there are all sorts of technical problems with the amendment.
	From my perspective of promoter of the Bill, the amendment adds a completely new dimension. I also remind the hon. Gentleman that his colleague, the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond), took up a considerable amount of the House's time on Second Reading to criticise my Bill, as it was then drafted, for the burdens that it imposed on local authorities. After that criticism, I find it a little hard to be faced with a proposal to put back into the Bill a provision that the Conservative Front-Bench spokesman specifically condemned. The hon. Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer) also commented on the lack of precision in the amendment.
	The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings said that the amendment would be cost-effective. If so, I should have thought that we needed a code of practice to explain to local authorities the benefits that would accrue if they adopted it. They should then be queuing up for a cost saving, which they are always searching for.
	I repeat that the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge heavily criticised me on Second Reading for doing exactly what the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings is seeking to achieve through the amendment. The hon. Gentleman will not therefore be surprised if I do all that I can to resist the amendment on this occasion.

Phil Hope: The amendment would require local housing authorities to maintain a register of all housing, including private sector housing, that is accessible to people with disabilities. The Government recognise that it is enormously important that disabled people can access accommodation that meets their needs. In replying to this probing amendment, I shall say a few words about increasing the supply of accessible homes and the importance of being able to match disabled people with them. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning was in his place to hear our debate.
	We are taking action to increase the supply of housing accessible to people with disabilities. All newly built homes are required to comply with part M of the building regulations. The Government revised part M in 1999 to improve the visitability and convenience of new housing. The revised regulations include requirements to ensure that entrances, lifts, corridors, doorways and WCs are accessible, including to wheelchair users. Those provisions are expected to enable occupants to cope better with reducing mobility and to live longer in their own homes.
	We announced earlier this year that we will carry out a further review of part M, with the aim of incorporating lifetime home standards for accessibility into the building regulations. Furthermore, in relation to new social housing, the Government require that all schemes funded through the Housing Corporation comply not only with the building regulations, but with additional criteria for accessibility and internal environments set out in the Housing Corporation's scheme development standards.
	Our reform of the planning system is also designed to address issues of access and inclusion. The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill includes requirements for access statements to be drawn up to support planning applications in appropriate circumstances. The Bill will also introduce a statutory requirement for those responsible for preparing regional spatial strategies and local development documents in England to undertake those functions with a view to contributing to the achievement of sustainable development. That will be defined in planning policy statement 1. PPS1 will make it clear that development plans should contain clear and comprehensive inclusive access policies.
	We are not only taking action to improve accessibility in relation to new developments; we have also substantially increased resources to fund adaptations to existing housing stock. The disabled facilities grants programme provides funding for local authorities to help disabled home owners and tenants to pay for essential adaptations to their homes. Since 1997, Government funding for disabled facilities grants has nearly doubled, rising to £100 million a year. This year, more than 33,000 homes will be adapted to meet the needs of disabled people through the programme—a 50 per cent. increase on 1997–98. That deals with the point raised by the hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) about the resources available to help disabled people secure accessible homes. We have also given local authorities new and wide-ranging discretionary powers to provide help for home owners for repairing and improving their properties, in addition to the support provided through the mandatory disabled facilities grants programme.
	Through our revisions to the building regulations, through the standards we set for new social housing, through our reforms to the planning system and through our funding for adaptations, we are seeking to increase the availability of accessible homes that meet the needs of disabled people. However, the point of the amendment is about how to match those homes to disabled people. Increasing the supply of accessible housing to disabled people is only the first task. We also need to ensure that people with disabilities are matched with the most suitable accommodation available. The amendment is designed to press the Government to make improvements in that respect. That, of course, is why the Government encourage local housing authorities to maintain disability housing registers, an issue that was debated during the passage of the Housing Bill.
	The code of guidance on the allocation of accommodation that we issued to local housing authorities in November 2002 makes it clear that
	"the Secretary of State recommends housing authorities to maintain lists of properties which are suitable for disabled people and other special needs groups . . . Such lists might include all accessible or significantly adapted local authority stock, RSL properties and private sector properties to which authorities nominate tenants."
	In addition to that statutory guidance, good practice guidance on disabled housing registers is also available to social landlords. "A Perfect Match?", published jointly by the Housing Corporation and the National Disabled Persons Housing Service in 1999—currently being updated—is designed to help spread best practice and to support the creation of matching services.
	Choice-based lettings schemes, under which properties are openly advertised and appropriately labelled as to the level of adaptation, also make it easier to match people with disabilities to appropriate available accommodation. Those schemes help to provide people with disabilities with the information that they need to choose a home appropriate to their diverse needs. More than 20 per cent. of local authorities are now pursuing some form of choice-based lettings system and we have set a target that all local authorities will have adopted choice-based lettings schemes by 2010.
	Although I am fully in favour of measures that make it easier to match the housing needs of disabled people with available accommodation, in view of all that I have said, I am not persuaded that the amendment is the appropriate way forward. I hope that I have demonstrated our enthusiasm for making change and progress, but not necessarily through the amendment. There were good intentions behind it, but it also has unfortunate consequences. The Government repealed the duty to maintain a housing register in the Homelessness Act 2002, and I am not convinced that there is sufficient justification to reintroduce that duty for one category of applicant only.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer) pointed out, the amendment would require local authorities to maintain detailed registers of all current and future accessible housing in their area. To meet that requirement, local authorities would need to collect information on the access features of not only social housing and private sector housing to which the authority has nomination rights, but of all housing—including owner-occupied housing and homes for private let. The amendment would also require local authorities to provide information relating not only to existing homes, but, as the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) pointed out, to all homes proposed to be built or adapted to meet accessibility standards in the future.
	The exceptionally broad scope of the requirement would clearly place enormous demands on the resources of local authority housing services. For local authorities to collect detailed information on all properties within their boundaries—whether owned by them or by private individuals, and whether existing or yet to be built—would be onerous indeed.
	The question of cost was mentioned. I am aware that some local authorities that operate disabled housing registers have reported savings from this scheme. Following debates in Committee on the Housing Bill, the Minister for Housing and Planning asked Office of the Deputy Prime Minister officials to look into the operation of such registers across the country. That was the commitment that we made in Committee. The emerging findings show enormous variation in the declared savings of such schemes. Information was limited, variable and lacking in consistency. For instance, some estimates were based on the whole disabled persons housing service, rather than specifically on the disabled housing register.
	Because of those serious data reliability issues, we cannot be certain that registers would produce any savings for authorities in the long term. What is certain is that all registers incurred significant start-up costs, which would be a significant new burden on local authorities if registers were to be required in legislation. There are also practical issues around how local authorities could gather information about the access features of privately owned properties in their area in practice, unless the owner volunteered such information. Our view remains that making registers a legislative requirement would place a disproportionate burden upon local authorities and take up resources that could be better used to improve the provision of housing for disabled people through the disabled facilities grants programme.
	We are committed to taking action to ensure that people with disabilities have access to housing that meets their needs. Our announcement of an expedited review of part M to incorporate the lifetime home standard into the building regulations illustrates that commitment. But we believe that the best way forward is through non-legislative measures, such as increased funding for the delivery of a first-class adaptations service and continuing to encourage and promote best practice in local lettings policies to help match people with the most appropriate housing available. With those words of explanation, I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw this amendment.

John Hayes: The Minister has given a useful and interesting response to our short debate and I have two or three further points to make. First, the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer) appropriately raised the question about the extent of the responsibility to maintain information to match disabled people with appropriate housing. We should not be naive about that, because much adapted housing exists outside the local authority sector. For instance, housing associations, such as the John Grooms housing association, do good work in that area, and the private sector also contains some adapted housing. It is not good enough to exclude such housing from a sensible consideration of how to move forward on the issue. Indeed, Governments have not done so in the past.
	I mentioned the Housing Act 1996 and it is worth drawing particular attention to the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996, annexe 1 to circular 17/96, entitled "Private Sector Renewal: a Strategic Approach". That guidance, issued under the Act, states that local authorities should consider
	"the development of registers of adapted homes and of people looking for such properties."
	Given that that guidance was aimed at taking a lateral view of the availability of accommodation, and that it also mentions matching people with properties, it is clear that the Government recognised a problem that had to be dealt with. The Minister acknowledged that issue in his remarks, but we should not take too narrow an approach. The balance between cost and efficacy is an issue, and all sensible people would wish to take that into account, but I hope that a sufficiently lateral approach will be taken.
	Secondly, we must take account of existing good practice. I was interested in what the Minister said about the research that was done after my original comments on the issue in Committee on the Housing Bill. I am grateful to the Secretary of State for having commissioned that work by the Department. The Minister said that it produced varying results, but we should consider best practice as found in those authorities that report good results on matching and on cost-effectiveness, in terms of needing to adapt fewer homes, and see how that best practice could be spread to other areas. Local authorities may take different approaches—electronic databases, information distribution, process management, interaction between departments are all relevant. For example, a social services input would be needed as well as a housing input, and possibly a health input. A multi-agency approach is required to achieve the best results. Therefore, I reasonably ask the Minister to consider what the most effective local authorities do and seek to export it to others.
	Thirdly, I wonder whether further discussion might take place with those who represent disabled people, such as the housing associations that specialise in the issue. I mentioned John Grooms housing association, which produced a very good report last year, in conjunction with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, on housing availability for wheelchair users. The results that it found were disappointing, even in respect of new build. Substantial numbers of newly built properties did not meet statutory requirements for access. The Minister said that progress had been made, but there is an issue of compliance. I hope that the Minister will agree to meet people from the sector to discuss the matter further, so that we might make some progress.

Nick Palmer: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

John Hayes: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not mind if I move on. I am usually generous in giving way.
	With those comments and caveats, I can say that the Minister has approached the issue in a helpful and positive way. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
	Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	Order for Third Reading read.

Andrew Stunell: I wish to thank all those colleagues who have participated in discussions on the Bill, on Second Reading, in Committee and today. I also wish to thank organisations outside the House that have contributed to the Bill in its present form, especially the Greater Manchester police, who gave me practical assistance on the crime reduction aspect of the Bill, and the WWF which, with its 1 million sustainable homes campaign, has been an important supporter of the Bill.
	The Bill comes at an important time in the development of policy by the United Kingdom on sustainability. Only last week, the Government published their plan of action for energy efficiency, and next week the House will consider the Energy Bill. I like to think that my Bill will play a part in helping the Government out of a hole. They signed up to Kyoto, acknowledged the royal commission report, produced a performance and innovation report and then published a White Paper. They now need some legislation to deliver on some of those promises, and I hope that my Bill will help to do so.
	I am delighted that the Bill has got so far and I am keen to finish the job, so I will not delay the House for long. I brought before the House a Bill that I described as modest, and it has emerged from Committee a little more modest, which I regret. It was never the answer to everything, and it certainly is not now. The Bill is a useful building block that can help to cut crime; I gave practical examples of that at Second Reading.
	The Bill can help to cut carbon emissions and can promote the sustainability of buildings and of homes. Buildings collectively are currently responsible for more than 30 per cent. of this country's carbon emissions, with homes alone accounting for about 27 per cent. Also, clause 5 contains a useful provision that holds the Government to account, requiring them to report every two years on the progress they are making and are planning to make.
	I could easily wax lyrical. On checking Hansard, I was amazed to find that I had talked on Second Reading for 70 minutes. I hope to keep it well under seven minutes this time and simply say that I commend the Bill to the House. I hope it is brought to the Lords quickly and is subsequently put on the statute book as quickly as possible.

Brian White: Today, I should have been chairing a meeting between the Milton Keynes energy agency and the local authority about the energy needs of local authority buildings, so it is appropriate that I am here to support the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell). The Bill is useful and builds on the Sustainable Energy Act 2003, which the hon. Gentleman strongly supported. He ought to be congratulated, not just on the Bill but on galvanising support from the public and from the organisations about which he talked.
	The Bill is a step forward and a building block, and makes a number of key advances. I regret that two of the clauses on energy that were in the Bill when it went into Committee have been removed. However, that does not mean that the Government will not need to discuss and make progress on the issues. I am confident that they will, and that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary's assurances in Committee will be taken forward. We are to discuss the Energy Bill next week, when we will return to the issue of renewables. There are a number of key issues that we need to take forward and this Bill gives us an opportunity to do that.
	I am sure that the Under-Secretary will assure the House that the Government are on target to achieve their energy objectives. In welcoming the Bill and wishing it well in the Lords, I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the Bill, the progress that he has made and the difference that the Bill will make to the country.

Sue Doughty: I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) on the work that he has done. My hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Brian White) have concerns that the Bill does not go as far as we would like. We must continue to work on previous and future energy legislation to see its impact on climate change and other problems. I am however delighted that the Bill is being taken forward.
	I thank the Under-Secretary for his help. The other day, I chaired a meeting at which he gave a most interesting address on sustainable buildings. His personal comments about the Bill are helpful.
	The housing stock is desperately important, but the scourge of fuel poverty is still with us. We have made progress, but there is a long way to go. As energy costs increase, the problem becomes more urgent, particularly among the lowest income groups. I look forward to the Energy Bill, which we hope will deal with that matter.
	Public buildings, town centre developments and out of town shopping centres can contribute to the excess use of energy and resources, as well as to greenhouse gas problems. In future, such developments must use fewer resources and must be less demanding and more sustainable. This is where the Bill starts to make progress.
	I met the developers of a proposed development in central Guildford, and at last they are starting to talk about combined heat and power and recycling. Big companies are much better on recycling because the re-use of materials can reduce their costs, but small law firms, for example, that generate lots of paper often do not have recycling facilities. We hope that the Bill will start to help such organisations. We need to know how large buildings can generate renewables, which is possible. These are cheap wins if we can move the market forward. We also need more sustainable construction.
	Public thinking is changing. A few weeks ago, I was canvassing for a by-election in an area of Guildford that has an area of land that is up for development. It is to be used for properties, but people were asking where the recycling facilities would be. They wanted composting facilities and the easy collection of recyclables. We also need to examine the conversion of large buildings into flats. My flat in London is in a large building, the former headquarters of the NAAFI. When it was converted, opportunities for combined heat and power were not taken, although the building would have been an ideal candidate. There is no recycling facility. It is gated and secure, but an opportunity has been lost.
	I strongly welcome the Bill, which will be paving legislation. It does not change things as such but gives the Government more opportunity, through building regulations, to say what they want and how they can work on climate change and fuel poverty and cut waste. I am delighted that the Bill is proceeding, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove.

John Hayes: We are coming to the conclusion of a good debate that has cut across the party divide, largely   thanks to the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell). Exploring the important issues of the security and sustainability of buildings has done the House a power of good.
	I had a lovely day on Monday; I went to Birmingham. I do not often go there and it was exciting. I went to the master builder of the year gala awards lunch, attended by hundreds of builders. I was the only politician there, which was disappointing. No doubt others were invited, but we have busy diaries. I was pleased to see the very best of what builders can do. The awards involve the exploration by judges of projects throughout the country and show what builders—typically small firms—can achieve when they take on board the things we discussed during our debates.
	We can do good work. There is great skill throughout the building professions and we have many good architects. We have people who are committed to producing the very best, and they must be encouraged. The House will forgive me for noting that one of those nominated for a prize—indeed, the winner of a local award—was Fensom Builders, for a project in Deeping St. James in my glorious constituency. I met Dave Fensom and his family; better people one could not wish to know. They are typical of small builders in this country who are taking on board many of the considerations embodied in the Bill.
	In broadly supporting the arguments advanced by the hon. Member for Hazel Grove throughout consideration of the Bill, I wish to discuss three matters that emerged from that consideration: power, learning and knowledge. The hon. Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer) mentioned the difficult balance between, on the one hand, the power that the legislation will provide and the resulting issues of cost and effectiveness—whether the good intentions can be delivered—and, on the other, the desirability of the intentions that lie behind the Bill. That balance will be the test of whether the proposals make legislation that is indeed as good as we hope it will be. When speaking of power, the whole House turns first to Edmund Burke, who said:
	"The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse."
	It seems to me that when they consider the Bill, their lordships will be aware of that balance, which has properly been discussed here and been accepted as the key to whether the Bill makes good law.
	Hilaire Belloc, who is another of the Minister's heroes and one of mine, too, said that pride—not a fault of which we can accuse those present here today—
	"causes those who suffer from this disease to regard whatever they think they have learned . . . as absolute and sufficient."
	Although many of the things said during our deliberations, and much of the Bill, are good, they are neither absolute nor sufficient. That is why I moved my probing amendments today and why I have tried, in my humble contributions, to highlight some of the areas that are not yet sufficient and the ways in which the Bill could act as a catalyst for discussion of further issues, such as those affecting disabled people, warm homes and energy efficiency.
	On progress, I turn to my hero G. K. Chesterton, who said:
	"My attitude toward progress has passed from antagonism to boredom. I have long ceased to argue with people who prefer Thursday to Wednesday because it is Thursday."
	Progress must be more than an ambition, but to be realisable it must be routed in a certain sense of where we want to get to. Today, we have discussed aesthetics and our determination to ensure that our historic built environment is respected to an even greater degree than it has been thus far, and that we take proper account of the relationship between new buildings and existing settlements, and understand buildings' impact on the landscape. All are vital to ensuring that progress represents genuine improvement rather than change for change's sake.
	The hon. Member for Hazel Grove will agree with me that every Briton should have the opportunity to live in a home that is secure, warm and fit for its purpose. Let that be our mission. It is certainly the Conservatives' mission, and I think that we are gradually converting other parties, including the Government.

Nick Palmer: I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell). Each of us would like, before we leave this place after many scores of years, to be able to attach our name to a law. I have a nasty feeling that my epitaph will be, "He got bells on bicycles", but I think that the hon. Gentleman will be pleased to have his name attached to this substantial piece of legislation when, as we anticipate it will, it has completed its passage through both Houses and receives Royal Assent.
	There is broad consensus on the building regulations being the right way in which to deal with the general issues in the Bill. Any individual developer may pay lip service to the principles of sustainable development—indeed, his support may be genuine—but the financial, planning and other pressures attached to any development will tend to overwhelm such good intentions unless we secure a general raising of standards across the country. Everyone who has canvassed in his own and other constituencies will know that standards must be raised.
	I shall focus on an aspect that has been little discussed today: the design of buildings to discourage crime. Our constituents would no doubt be pleased to hear that their building was environmentally sustainable, but the issue that comes up more in daily canvassing is whether a building is designed to discourage hooligans and the entry and escape of people with inappropriate intentions—whether, when consideration was being given to developing a property, especially a block of flats, attention was paid to whether the design would discourage crime. That gets far too little attention at that stage, and we tend to fix the problem later, often at disproportionate expense.

Brian White: In my area, the local planning inspector has just thrown such key issues out of the local plan. My hon. Friend raises an important matter. I hope that the Minister will ensure that during inquiries planning inspectors take account of the need to design out crime.

Nick Palmer: Crime is one of the areas in which an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I think that we all have estates in our constituencies where, if more thought had been given to the problem, the risk of crime could have been greatly reduced.
	Clause 2(8) amends section 44 of the Building Act 1984, which deals with Crown properties. Building legislation passed in 1944 has not yet taken effect. Although I am all in favour of not rushing legislation, I ask the Minister to consider whether 60 years is sufficient time to implement the provision in respect of Crown properties.
	We had a partly playful but also partly serious discussion on the registration of properties with good disabled access. Leaving the banter aside, the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes), whom I count as a personal friend despite his criticisms of my sartorial excellence, is on to a serious point here. I suggest that local authorities be encouraged to register the disabled access of buildings in their control, and in respect of housing associations, and that they maintain a voluntary register so that owners of private property who wish to record the fact that they have improved their properties to allow for people with disabilities are able to do so with some local authority imprimatur or a verification to show that that has happened. People trying to sell their property would find that beneficial and helpful, as opposed to an imposition, which is how the proposal would be considered if there was a blanket requirement to register the situation for every property in the borough.
	I urge those implementing the Bill to examine best international practice. As has been said in the debate, Britain has a great tradition of architecture, but I am not sure that we have a great tradition of sustainable development. There are countries that are significantly in advance of us on that. We should consider examples from Scandinavia and countries such as Switzerland and Holland, which is no doubt of special interest to the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, as we would see that there are lessons to be learned, which we do not have to reinvent. If we could achieve the best international standards, that would be an enormous step forward.
	We obviously must consider the cost of any such improvements. When we have what is generally accepted to be a shortage of housing, especially affordable housing, we must be careful that we do not gold-plate the regulations to the extent that affordable housing becomes unaffordable.
	I think the hon. Member for Hazel Grove, who introduced the legislation, would agree that many of the improvements that we can envisage in building regulations are not terribly expensive, but merely ones that people have to decide to make. It is not necessary to have amazingly luxurious building with all modern conveniences for every conceivable situation; it is merely necessary to bear in mind as one develops a new construction that we need to cover the aspect of crime prevention and that of environmental sustainability.

Andrew Stunell: I agree absolutely with the hon. Gentleman. The building legislation and the building regulations are some of the best preventive health measures there are. I have made the point before that building inspectors have saved more lives than doctors in the past 150 years, and long may it continue.

Nick Palmer: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. We tend to overlook the health aspect of the issue. We consider the environmental side, which is a social good, and the crime side, which is a social and individual good, but it is easy to forget that good building regulations mean healthy buildings, and healthy buildings reduce the burden on the health service.
	It is Friday morning and, as usual, the turnout is not overwhelming, but we must acknowledge that such legislation—for example, the Town and Country Planning Act 1990—has a significance and an impact well beyond that of more glamorous and high-profile legislation. I would be surprised to see any reference in any of tomorrow's newspapers to the passing of the Bill, but it will probably benefit people right across the country for decades to come. As has been said, we are busy people, so we should all feel a little proud that we spent some time on a Friday morning giving the legislation a fair wind.

Matthew Green: The House will be relieved to hear that I intend to be brief and that I do not intend to quote from a Burke.
	I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) on this excellent Bill and the manner in which he has taken it forward. I would add my congratulations to the Minister and to the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes), who speaks from the Conservative Front Bench, on approaching the Bill sensibly and meaningfully. That shows their intention to take the Bill seriously.
	I did not have the pleasure of serving on the Committee—I have probably served on too many Committees involving the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in recent months, so my absence was probably a relief—so I rise briefly now to offer the support of Liberal Democrat Front Benchers for the Bill. I am not saying that just because my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove is the Liberal Democrat Chief Whip.
	I agree with my hon. Friend that it is a shame that the Bill lost some elements in Committee, but he still has a Bill of which he can be very proud. It will make step changes and improve sustainability and security of buildings. The public will appreciate that he has done a great service in introducing it.
	The Bill is based on firm principles, but those principles have not prevented it from being coherent and, most importantly, effective. I hope that the other place also approaches it pragmatically and sensibly, and approves it so that it can reach the statute book, which it deserves to do.

Phil Hope: Here we are on Third Reading and the Bill, like me earlier, has arrived at its crunch point. I thank the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) and congratulate him on introducing it and taking it forward. The Government offer it their strong support.
	Modestly, the hon. Gentleman described the Bill as modest, but I beg to differ. I believe that it will be of enormous help in supporting Government policies and aspirations on sustainable development and security. I also thank other hon. Members who—in the Chamber today, in Committee and on Second Reading—have played an active part in its consideration. We have had contributions from the hon. Member for Guildford (Sue Doughty) and from my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Brian White), who has a well-known track record of championing this cause.
	During consideration of the Bill, my hon. Friend has pressed the Government and the hon. Member for Hazel Grove to take things further. Where we have been able to do so, we have responded positively; where we have been unable to do so, our intent has none the less been similar to his. I hope he acknowledges that.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley), who is not present, lost her amendment in Committee, but, through the hon. Member for Hazel Grove, we have managed to put it in the Bill, which is very pleasing. Indeed, it has been a pleasure for me to serve for the first time during consideration of a Bill with the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes), who brought eloquence and flair to our proceedings, quoting Belloc, Chesterton and Burke.
	I remind the hon. Gentleman that when we discussed city states and their evolution during the passage of the Local Government Bill, I managed to get Marx, Hegel, Machiavelli and Rousseau into our proceedings. I suggest that my panoply of champions is at least a match for his.

John Hayes: I think that the whole House will know that, whereas the Minister is Machiavellian, I aim merely to be Chestertonian.

Phil Hope: I can put that on my tombstone in the long and distant future—not too soon, I trust. To be known as the Machiavelli of modern British politics would be—

Joan Ryan: The prince.

Phil Hope: The prince of modern British politics would be a fine epitaph for a junior Minister.
	I would like to mention the main provisions of the Bill and remind everyone about what we have achieved and are achieving through it. It will allow building regulations to be made for new purposes of furthering the protection or enhancement of the environment, facilitating sustainable development and furthering the prevention or detection of crime. It extends the circumstances in which building regulations apply to existing buildings and allows building regulations to impose continuing requirements where needed to conserve fuel or power or to reduce greenhouse emissions.
	The Bill requires a register of information to be kept by local authorities about their building control functions. It allows regulations to require that building control compliance is certified to the local authority and regulations to require a person to be appointed to manage compliance with the building regulations throughout the period of building work. It also requires a biennial report to Parliament on the progress of sustainability in the building stock in England and Wales and, as a result of today's decisions, it requires the Secretary of State to take into account the historic character of buildings when making building regulations.
	I do not think that it is a modest Bill. We in the House and the hon. Member for Hazel Grove can be proud of it. The Government are delighted to support it. I hope that it will receive fair wind in the other place and that it will become an Act in due course.
	The Bill is in line with Government policy on sustainability and the environment. It will help us to apply our wider policy objectives to building regulations. I want to say a few more words about why we support the introduction of the measures that I have described and about how the Bill will help us to promote security and crime reduction.
	It is interesting that, both on Second Reading and in Committee, the sustainable development aspects of the Bill attracted most attention and interest, yet its security and crime-reduction measures are hugely significant, too. The powers will enable us to do something to try to reduce crime and to decrease people's fear of crime in the years ahead.
	Sustainability is an important part of the Government's programme. We are committed to promoting economic growth but, crucially, we are keen to do so in a way that promotes quality of life and does not diminish it. That has been too often forgotten by previous Governments.
	One of the most common definitions of sustainability is
	"development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs".
	Hon. Members will know that the ODPM launched the sustainable communities plan, which is about regenerating communities and about growth that includes the infrastructure that is required to ensure that we do not build soulless housing estates and make the errors of the past that bedevil rather too many of us in our constituencies. We want growth that is genuinely sustainable, not only in the economic and social senses but, crucially, in the environmental sense. It will be a triple win, if we can do it: creating, building and growing sustainable communities that combine economic, social and environmental progress.
	I spoke to the all-party group on sustainable waste only the other day. The hon. Member for Guildford was kind enough to thank me for that. There is huge interest in the House and great support for measures concerning sustainability that recognise—this applies not just to waste management but to many other sectors—the importance of being able to embrace all three aims. Understanding how to achieve economic progress, sustainable environmental progress and social progress is the real story of the 21st century, so that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past.
	The Bill will allow us to use building regulations to make buildings more sustainable. It aims to improve the quality of life of people in their homes and workplaces in a cost-effective way to avoid imposing burdens on business. There are three specific ways in which it will move policy forward.
	First, it aims to promote the sustainable use and re-use of building materials. Secondly, it aims to raise performance standards for energy efficiency and so reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and vapours. Thirdly, it aims to increase the level of compliance with building regulations through measures relating to appointed persons and certification. Those are three specific, concrete, identifiable action points that will achieve specific and agreeable outcomes. The hon. Member for Hazel Grove championed those measures throughout proceedings in Committee. He was right to do so. They will achieve real progress.
	In addition, the biennial report to Parliament on the progress of those activities and of sustainability by the Secretary of State will act as a spur to continuing good practice. We should not underestimate the challenge presented to us by the Bill, the fact that the Government are prepared to support it, and the report. There is a small cost involved in that. We debated issues around cost; I do not think Burke really got into the difference between power and regulation. This is an enabling Bill that allows us to take those powers forward. Therefore, costs associated with the Bill are small because they relate only to reporting to Parliament.
	Later, when the building regulations are discussed, consultation is held and the regulatory impact assessment is made, there will be a detailed cost-benefit analysis of the various measures. Members raised those concerns, particularly on Second Reading. It is important that hon. Members understand what the Bill will do and the regulations that will flow from it.

Sue Doughty: I add my appreciation of the fact that there will be reporting. I have regularly lamented the Government's refusal to report on progress and I have highlighted the importance of reporting. I am grateful for the Government's movement on that and for the Minister's understanding of the importance of progress reports.

Phil Hope: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her comment. We were not able to accept some of the amendments tabled in Committee because they went further than we were able to go at the time, but in this case we have responded positively—in the production of the Bill, in Committee, on Report and on Third Reading—to put on record our commitment and to implement it through the reporting process.
	The imposition of a requirement on local authorities to keep information about their building control function will help them to meet the needs of the home information pack, and better enable them and the general public to track the progress of sustainability in their areas. We will thus be able to see the progress locally, as well as nationally and in Parliament.
	On energy efficiency, the building regulations that the Bill directly affects play a crucial part in our climate change programme. As hon. Members know, that sets targets for reducing national carbon emissions in 2010 to 20 per cent. below that in 1990. Almost half of our national carbon emissions are from buildings. Understanding that a building is responsible for carbon emissions is an interesting idea, to which the hon. Member for Hazel Grove alluded. Most people believe that carbon emissions are generated by cars, aeroplanes and so on—things that move around. The idea that carbon emissions are generated by buildings is understood by scientists and, I hope, by children in their lessons at school, but I am not sure the general public fully understand it. It is true to say that about half of our national carbon emissions are from buildings.

Andrew Stunell: The Minister makes an important point. It continues to fascinate me that this place spends so much time and so much political energy on measures that will affect traffic and vehicles, whereas my house and the Minister's house emit more carbon than my car or the Minister's car. I welcome his recognition of that, and I hope that that means that in future a larger part of Government policy will be directed at reducing carbon emissions from buildings, with less attention focused on traffic.

Phil Hope: I am interested to hear the Liberal Democrat Chief Whip announce new Liberal Democrat policy from the Back Benches, and that the Liberal Democrats are no longer in favour of reducing carbon emissions from traffic. No doubt that will find its way into various leaflets—

Andrew Stunell: rose—

Phil Hope: Perhaps I am about to be corrected.

Andrew Stunell: Occasionally, misapprehensions can be picked up by Labour Ministers when they are not paying sufficient attention. I assure the hon. Gentleman that I am not authorised to change Liberal Democrat transport policy this morning.

Phil Hope: And neither am I.

Richard Bacon: Does anybody care?

Phil Hope: I believe that more people are beginning to care about carbon emissions. They understand the impact of greenhouse gases on climate change and global warming. [Interruption.] I stand corrected—the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon) was asking whether people care about Liberal Democrat policy. I fully share his cynicism in that regard.
	The Bill will allow the application of regulations to a greater number of existing buildings, not just new ones. Improving standards in the existing building stock is vital to meet the targets. We all look forward to the report—it is due to reach the Government soon—from the sustainable buildings task group chaired by Victor Benjamin and Sir John Harman. It was commissioned by no fewer than three Departments—the Department of Trade and Industry, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister—to recommend steps that we can take immediately to improve buildings in this country.
	I shall deal briefly with an aspect of the Bill that has received less attention than the energy efficiency and sustainability provisions that we have been discussing: security and crime reduction. Those are particularly important in view of the debate that may take place later today. The provision in the Bill paves the way for the Government to introduce building regulations that will facilitate the prevention and detection of crime. That is very welcome. In addition to being an inclusive, well designed environment, a sustainable community must strive to be free from crime and free from the fear of crime. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that implementing even basic security measures can reduce the risk of an individual becoming the victim of burglary.
	According to the 2002–03 British crime survey, some 974,000 domestic burglaries were committed in that year. I am pleased to say that that is 25 per cent. fewer than in 1999, which is good news for our communities, but it is still far too many. The evidence from that survey is that security measures are strongly associated with a reduced risk of becoming a victim of burglary. Households with basic security measures, such as deadlocks on outside doors and locks that need keys to open them on all accessible windows, are at less risk of being burgled. That is why the Bill will have a significant and valuable impact.
	We can do a lot more to encourage people to improve the security of their homes and businesses by taking straightforward measures, such as ensuring that the door and its frame are solid and that the doors and windows have effective locks. Too many people fit security only after they have been burgled. On Second Reading, a number of hon. Members said that they had had their house burgled and that the police had come round, inspected their windows and doors, and said, "Why don't you just put a different kind of lock on your front door? With that, this burglary would not have happened."
	I have had that precise experience. I came downstairs one morning, not realising that I had been burgled during the night. My video and television had been stolen, which was a shock when I walked into my front room. The police who came round to take fingerprints rightly chastised me for not fitting standard locks, which are easily affordable, on doors and windows. I went straight to the DIY shop to buy window and door locks, which I fitted myself, but if I had known about this debate, I would have fitted locks before being burgled rather than afterwards.
	We can learn that lesson through these regulations. It would be best if people fitted locks voluntarily, but the Bill will enable building regulations to be made on fitting such locks to all new buildings and, when the circumstances change, to the existing building stock. That will reduce burglaries, because statistical analysis shows that homes with such locks on their doors and windows are less likely to be burgled.

Brian White: Further to my intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer), will the Minister make sure that the whole planning system, and not just the building regulations, takes that issue seriously, because crime can be designed out when housing estates are constructed? If planning inspectors do not recognise that point, they are doing our constituents a disservice.

Phil Hope: My hon. Friend is absolutely right; I was going to refer to that point. The Bill is about building regulations, not the planning system, but measures on estate planning and building design can help to reduce crime considerably. My hon. Friends in the Home Office and other Departments are working together across the Government to examine ways to promote the idea of designing out crime, which requires Departments to work together. Other Ministers and I sit on Cabinet Sub-Committees to examine how we can work together on issues such as designing out crime to ensure that we take that agenda forward. PPS10 is particularly interesting, and it provides a way to move forward.
	In time, we will be able to make regulations so that all new or refurbished buildings have basic security measures from the outset. We do not expect to use the provisions in the Bill to impose onerous or prescriptive measures, because the precise nature of the security needed in any place depends on the nature and location of the property, the type of use envisaged for it and who will occupy or visit it. However, we are taking a stride forward this morning with this Bill.
	Finally, I remind the House that this is an enabling Bill to allow us at a future date to pass regulations based on such powers, and that before the introduction of the regulations, there will be a full regulatory impact assessment and a consultation process. I thank the hon. Member for Hazel Grove for introducing the Bill and ably piloting it through the sometimes choppy waters of its passage through the House. We have inevitably had to deal with the vagaries of procedure, which we have done successfully. I also thank all other hon. Members, some of whom I have not managed to mention specifically, who have contributed to a Bill that will, in time, make a difference to promoting sustainable development and improving security in our country's buildings.

Andrew Stunell: I very much appreciate the remarks—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman needs to ask the leave of the House.

Andrew Stunell: With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I wish to thank all hon. Members who spoke in support of the Bill on Third Reading.
	I see the Bill as the start, not the end, of a process. The Minister was kind enough to suggest that it is a substantial part of the jigsaw, but it is certainly not the complete picture. I have already given notice to him and his officials that if the Bill proceeds successfully I will haunt him by coming back to ensure that we get the results that we want. I therefore hope that it completes its passage now.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

Criminal Justice (Justifiable Conduct) Bill

Order for Second reading read.

Roger Gale: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
	As you would expect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the main body of my remarks will be addressed to the content and structure of the Bill, but it might help the House if, before I embark upon that fairly detailed analysis, I spend a few moments dealing with its pedigree.
	I shall start by quoting from The Times of 2 January this year. At the beginning of the year of our Lord 2004, "The Thunderer" announced, in measured terms, "Radio 4 listeners want right to kill intruders". Under the byline of one Mr. Greg Hurst, it continued:
	"It began as a quirky idea to pad out the Today programme over the quiet Christmas holiday period: ask listeners to nominate a change in the law and then vote for it. Stephen Pound, a pliant Labour MP with an appetite for publicity, stood by ready to introduce a Bill in the Commons.
	By yesterday morning, however, the Radio 4 programme had a potential disaster on its hands. The winning Bill, it announced, would allow homeowners to use any means to defend their property. Any means? Not reasonable force, as the law currently allows? Using deadly force? Shooting people? Apparently so."
	The "Today" programme had auditioned its listeners to come forward with ideas for legislation. The "Today" editorial team of which I was a minor member some years ago would probably have listened to the suggestion of a no doubt bright, able and creative researcher, congratulated the author of the concept on a most valuable contribution to broadcasting, then put the matter quietly on the spike. The current team appears to be rather different. The wheels were set in motion and there was, I suppose, an awful predictability about the outcome. Having taken the "Pop Idol" approach to politics, Radio 4 trailed the fact with the words, "Our friendly MP is going to introduce your Bill."
	As you know better than most, Mr. Deputy Speaker, it is the courtesy in this House that, if one Member intends to attack another, it is customary to give him notice beforehand. I have not found it necessary to give such notice to the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound) because I do not intend to attack him at all. I will now damage his reputation still further: he is a personal friend. He would say that, if The Times describes him as having an appetite for publicity, it is only equal and commensurate with my appetite for the same. I can say that in all fairness because he and I used to share a Sunday morning broadcast programme together. It was so successful that we decided that we would be better off staying in bed and ringing up the listeners. I believe that that was the point at which we made the right decision. However, he appears to have gone one step further and sought the fame of the Radio 4 "Today" programme.
	In The Times on 2 January, Mr. Simon Jenkins wrote:
	"Where would we be without the BBC? Not content with usurping the scrutiny function of the House of Commons, it now purports to legislate. Yesterday, it presented Parliament with a Bill to allow homeowners to shoot all burglars on sight. This was justified by something called a 'listeners' poll' which a tame Labour MP . . . had agreed to present to the House of Commons, sight unseen."
	Mr. Jenkins is known to this House as a capable journalist, but I fear that he was profoundly wrong on many counts in his opening paragraph. However, he was right in one specific regard, namely his attack on the public service broadcaster for its endeavour to interfere in the course of legislation in a manner that many of us on both sides of the House regard as wholly unacceptable.

Eric Forth: I give notice, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that if I catch your eye, I would like to say a few uncongenial words about the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound). Does my hon. Friend agree that many Bills that arise in the House, particularly on Fridays, are originated by unpleasant single-interest pressure groups? The distinction between an unpleasant single-interest pressure group and the mighty BBC is a difficult one to make.

Roger Gale: My right hon. Friend will no doubt go further down that road if he catches your eye later, Mr. Deputy Speaker. For the moment, however, it is not my intention to do so.
	I took the matter of this process up with the editor of the "Today" programme on Radio 4, Mr. Kevin Marsh. Mr. Marsh took exception to my criticism of his vehicle and wrote to me to say that even
	"as we speak, we are working on drafting a piece of legislation."
	Now, the BBC has many admirable qualities. It produces hours and hours of fine televisual and radio broadcasting, but I do not believe that it is the business of the public service broadcaster of this country to engage in the drafting of a piece of legislation. I took this up in a letter to the then editor-in-chief and director-general of the BBC on 13 January. Mr. Dyke and I did not agree—as we have not on other occasions—on this issue.
	Let the House not misunderstand me. I believe that the purpose behind the BBC's exercise was founded in good faith. It is a sadness to us all that the public take far too little interest in our proceedings and in the democratic process, and that they believe that they have no voice and no effect. That is demonstrated much too frequently in local and national polls at election time.
	Had the BBC wanted to pursue the process of following a private Member's Bill through both Houses of Parliament, it would have been remarkably easy for it so to do. It could have taken the Sustainable and Secure Buildings Bill, which had its Report stage and Third Reading here this morning, and tracked it right the way through Second Reading, Committee, this morning's proceedings and onwards into the House of Lords. That would probably have served the useful purpose of telling people outside this place how vulnerable private Members' Bills are, and how difficult it is to get something on to the statute book even if the cause is of the most just. However, the BBC chose not to do that. It went down the route of finding the "listeners' law", and the result was inevitable. It came up with a shortlist of many worthy subjects, but the overwhelming vote of the listeners to the programme that describes itself as the nation's flagship current affairs programme was for a subject dear to the listeners' heart. It was a subject trailed widely in the popular press—the householder's Bill, as it was called.

Nick Palmer: To clarify the matter, as the hon. Gentleman describes the vote as overwhelming, is he aware that it was in fact 37 per cent.?

Roger Gale: It was 37 per cent. of a vote in which there were about another eight candidate subjects, if I remember rightly; the hon. Gentleman probably remembers precisely. That was an overwhelming vote. Tens of thousands of listeners apparently voted for this subject.
	The reaction of the production team was equally predictable—sheer horror. The friendly MP regarded the subject as too reactionary and the listeners' law hit the buffers. I have made it plain that I do not believe in that manner of approaching the process. The BBC made a profound mistake, and I hope and believe, and think that I know, that at least behind the scenes it has been agreed that that kind of stunt will not be tried again. To take the point made by the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer), given that many thousands of people voted in the belief that their view was going to be brought before Parliament, my hon. Friends and I decided that we would have a go at wiping a little of the egg off Auntie's face, and see whether we could achieve something in the direction of the change to the criminal justice law that was required.
	To return to the point made by the hon. Member for Broxtowe, there were reports that the gun lobby rigged the vote. If that is false, it demonstrates a desire on the part of the public service broadcasters to ignore the voice of their listeners, and if it is true—I have no way of knowing—it must demonstrate the dangers, and highly undesirable vulnerability, of phone-in polls of this kind.
	Why are we here today and why did so many people vote for this subject? The bottom line is that they did. Their motivation, and the motivation of many represented by those who are here today and those who are not, lies in widely reported and possibly sensationalised descriptions of high-profile cases. One in particular, many people believe, represented a gross miscarriage of justice. I am not here to present that case. This is not, as it has been described in shorthand terms by the popular press, the Tony Martin Bill, any more than it is the listeners' law. What my right hon. and hon. Friends and I have done is to seek to construct an amendment to the criminal justice legislation that reflects the concerns of the people. Our approach is not a knee-jerk reaction to one hard case out of which we are seeking to extrapolate bad law, because hard cases do make bad law. We are seeking to address the underlying perception that the criminal justice system has moved towards the criminal as the victim and away from the interests of the real victim of the crime—in this case, the householder, be that person tenant or house owner. I will return to that point later.
	Let me now turn, perhaps not before time, to the substance of the Bill. If the Bill's pedigree could be described as part thoroughbred and part mongrel, its provenance is sound. It was drafted by an expert parliamentary draftsman. Members on both sides of the House may quarrel with some of the content, but I defy them to say that the Bill is technically unsound. Sadly, that cannot be said of some private Members' Bills. For that we owe a great debt of gratitude to the draftsman, Francis Bennion.
	The Bill's provisions are confined to dwellings because it concentrates on defence of the home. Article 8.1 of the European convention on human rights, which is enforced by the Human Rights Act 1998, states that every person has a right to respect for his or her home and that that requires the state to give special protection to people in their homes, in addition to the protection given to individual citizens by the law generally.
	The sanctity of the home has long been recognised by common law. Justifying the strict laws against burglary, which was designated by law as a crime committed by breaking and entering a dwelling house during the hours of darkness at the time, Sir William Blackstone said famously, "An Englishman's home is his castle". What is less famous but equally relevant is the rest of that statement:
	"Burglary is done at the dead of night, when all the creation, except beasts of prey, are at rest; when sleep has disarmed the owner, and rendered his castle defenceless".
	That goes to the heart of the Bill.
	In relation to criminal offences, the Bill provides a special defence for the householder in clause 1, and requires Crown prosecutors to pause and consider before prosecuting that householder. In relation to civil liability, clause 3 repeats much of what is said in clause 1. That is necessary simply because of the different standards of proof applying in civil and criminal cases.

Eric Forth: Notwithstanding his moving quotation about burglary, can my hon. Friend make it clear that his Bill makes no distinction between the hours of light and the hours of darkness? Will not anyone entering someone else's home be subject to its provisions, regardless of the hour?

Roger Gale: My right hon. Friend is of course right. The quotation is historic and applies to a time when law-abiding burglars only committed their crimes at night.
	The heading "Home defence (criminal liability)" in clause 1 indicates that the clause concentrates—as, indeed, does the whole Bill—on the defence of the home. It provides that the person being protected, person A, is protected when he or she is in a dwelling. "Dwelling" is defined later in the Bill. That person must be either the occupier of the dwelling, or present with the licence—the permission—of the occupier. That is standard statutory language. The occupier is the person currently in occupation, who may or may not be the owner. With respect to Mr. Jenkins, his article in The Times was palpably wrong, at least in regard to this Bill. The Bill does not differentiate between owner and tenant; it deals with the occupier.
	When the circumstances specified in terms of the occupier exist, the occupier is given special protection in respect of action that he takes against an intruder—person B. The person qualifies as B if he is trespassing in the dwelling. Again, that is a well understood legal term, covering anyone who is in the dwelling without consent. I shall come back to the nature of "dwelling", which is defined later in the Bill. Clause 1(2) also treats as an intruder—as B—a person who is attempting to gain unlawful entry, but has not yet succeeded in doing so. The person outside the window endeavouring to force the locks is as vulnerable to this defence as the person who has already broken in.
	Clause 1(2) protects the occupier against the person or property of person B, the intruder, for one of five listed reasons, which are self-explanatory. The wording of the last of them, that person A is acting "in prevention of crime", might cause some consternation, so I shall clarify it. It is taken from paragraph 9.10 of the Law Commission consultation paper No. 173, "Partial Defences to Murder". Under the clause, a person must genuinely believe that he or she is acting for one of the five reasons, but it does not matter if that person is mistaken in his or her belief.
	The clause has been subjected to some criticism by barristers because, curiously, they do not believe that it goes far enough. There is a legal concern, which may have to be addressed in Committee, that in dealing with the householder in this way, those of us who are promoting the Bill have sought to protect too narrow a special interest group. That is even though the context of the dwelling and the occupier is very broad. Another concern is that the circumstances as described in clause 1 may be too narrow. I am perfectly prepared to concede this morning that we will need to address that when the Bill enters Committee, as I hope that it will.
	The Law Commission paper that I have cited goes on to say that a person should not be convicted where the
	"acts in question were undertaken in self-defence and may have been an instinctive response to the perceived level of risk",
	and comments:
	"It is hard to see why the law affords greater protection to those who kill in response to insults"—
	under the existing defence of provocation—
	"than to those who do so while protecting their homes."
	The criminal standard of proof, which is proof beyond reasonable doubt, applies to clause 1, so to defeat the defence in clause 1, the prosecution would have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the householder did not genuinely believe at the time, in the circumstances then prevailing, that he or she was acting as stated in clause 1.
	The title of clause 2, "Home defence (restriction of prosecutions)", suggests that it is intended to restrict the number of prosecutions of householders and others engaged in the defence of the home. The Crown prosecutor arrives at the point of considering public interest only where the facts indicate that the evidence exists to give a strong prospect of obtaining conviction. Even where that is the case, the prosecution must not be instigated unless the public interest requires it. Clause 2 adds a further factor: that the public interest requires householders to be fully protected by the law against intruders into their home.

Nick Palmer: Just on a technical point, I am puzzled by clause 2. In what circumstances does the hon. Gentleman believe that a Crown prosecutor would think that a potential prosecution was valid under clause 1, or despite clause 1, but nevertheless should not be pursued because of clause 2? In other words, is not clause 2 superfluous if we have clause 1?

Roger Gale: I freely concede that there may be an element of belt and braces in the two clauses. The hon. Gentleman is right: clause 2 merely seeks to underscore the provisions established very clearly in clause 1. It is the carrying out of an act in the belief that it is necessary that is the defence.
	Given the issue that the hon. Member for Broxtowe has just raised, I shall intervene on myself, as it were, by pointing out one of the criticisms that is made of the Bill. It is made by those who clearly have not studied the law as it stands—as, indeed, I had not until I began this process. The popular perception is that it is currently in order to use reasonable force, without any change to the law. The difficulty with that is that the Crown Prosecution Service—the system—decides what is reasonable force. The public perception is that, increasingly, that pendulum has swung in favour of the criminal and away from the victim.
	I shall come back to that issue, on which I was given some very interesting information this morning by someone who clearly knows what he is talking about. But the difference between the law as it stands and this proposal is that the householder—we need to remember that the householder is the innocent party; the burglar has not been made to burgle—would decide what is reasonable force, not the CPS. If that answer satisfies the hon. Member for Broxtowe, I shall move on.
	The title of clause 3—"Home defence (civil liability)"—makes it clear that the clause concentrates on the defence of the home, as indeed does the Bill as a whole. But it is necessary to restate some parts of clause 1 because as I have said, there is a difference in the standards of proof required for civil and for criminal cases.
	Clause 4—the Bill's final clause—defines what is meant by "dwelling". The definition is taken from section 63(1) of the Family Law Act 1996, and makes it clear that "dwelling" covers not only a house or flat, but a caravan, houseboat, yard, garden, garage or any part of the curtilage of what most people would describe as—however humble—their home. Subsections (2) and (3) of clause 4 contain the usual transitional provisions, which ensure that the legislation cannot be applied retrospectively. This House has a sad recent history of embarking on retrospective legislation. It is not the intention of the Bill's promoter and sponsors that any of its provisions apply retrospectively. It is not the intention to permit redress to anybody who feels that they were wrongfully convicted in the past.
	I have dwelt on the issue of public perception quite deliberately. I defy any Member of this House who is in touch with their constituents—that is most of us—to say, hand on heart, that people do not feel that these days the criminal gets a much better deal than the real victim of the crime. There is a perception that one's home is no longer one's castle. In fact, in some circumstances even the law is not ready to say that one's home is one's castle. I was interested to hear the hon. Member for Corby (Phil Hope) recall at the tail-end of the previous debate how he and his wife had been burgled. Their home was ransacked and violated, and those of us to whom that has happened—again, sadly, that is probably most of us—know how dirty and genuinely violated that makes one feel. The police told him that in some way he was culpable because he had not locked his house up securely enough. He felt compelled to visit the hardware shop to buy new locks and new catches for his windows; and he fitted them to make his home more secure.
	I am not for one moment suggesting that it is not the duty of householders to seek to ensure the security of their property. The days when people living in a village could leave the back door and the front door open all day and probably all night are long gone. However, the suggestion that it is the fault of the householder when someone breaks in tells me that the world has largely gone mad.
	This is not, as the press has sought to describe it, a Bill to allow anyone to shoot a burglar. Let me put before the House the case not of Tony Martin, but of Robin Baker-White, a former high sheriff of Kent. He has had intruders on his property a number of times, and he and his wife have felt violated by having their possessions stolen. On one occasion—he has a licensed shotgun—he fired over the heads of the people retreating from his home with his goods, but the police confiscated his gun.
	This Bill is not about blasting to eternity with the family blunderbuss the 12-year-old who kicks a football into a garden and climbs over the fence to retrieve it. It is about sending a message to the courts, to the judicial system and to the criminal fraternity that now goes out armed—as an aside, since the abolition of capital punishment for murder—as a matter of course. Nowadays if there is any redress, it tends to be on the side of the criminal rather than the householder.

Nick Palmer: In that example, if a 12-year-old kicked a football into his garden and the hon. Gentleman thought that he was trespasser, does he believe that he should be immune from prosecution if he shot him?

Roger Gale: The Crown would have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the action was malicious. It is just possible that someone intruding in the garden at night could be there for a reason other than seeking to cause harm to the household, but with respect, in asking his question, the hon. Gentleman is going down the road about which the public are complaining, where the emphasis is on the side of the intruder—of whatever age and for whatever purpose.
	It may not be at the dead of night, and it could even happen at midday, but if I am upstairs and hear someone break into my home—I hear the crash of breaking glass and people moving around—and I feel threatened, I believe that I have the right to protect myself, my wife and others dear to me, my animals and my property by whatever means comes to hand. That is right so long as I believe at the time that I am doing what is necessary. That is my belief: a court cannot determine it. A court does not know the fear that is in my belly or my concern for my wife at that time.
	A broadcaster put it to me recently that an intruder could be mentally ill or on drugs. I said, "Well, forgive me, that's all right, then". The fact that the man is perhaps mentally ill, perhaps on drugs, might be a defence for killing me and raping my wife. I am sorry, but I do not buy that argument. An Englishman's home is his castle, however humble it may be, and I believe that he has the right to defend it.
	Why the support for the Bill? Before hon. Members ask, "Where are they?", I point out that my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), one of the supporters of the Bill, is in his place and hopes to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as is my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon). To our colleagues, my hon. Friends the Members for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson), for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier), for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Derek Conway), for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth), for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing), for Croydon, South (Richard Ottaway), for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner), for Congleton (Ann Winterton) and for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton), I have indicated that I was prepared to take the House step by step through the Bill—as I hope that I have done—in the knowledge that those who had constituency duties to fulfil should be able to do so. Many of those I have mentioned will however be available, if required, to serve in Committee.
	Does the Bill deserve a Second Reading? I believe that it does. I am indebted to Mr. Andrew Hawkins of Communicate Research. Hon. Members may have seen the results of his poll, which were published at 1 o'clock this morning. Mr. Hawkins conducted a survey of 201 Members of Parliament—or almost a third, which is a fair sample. I take no particular satisfaction from the poll, because 56 per cent. of Members on both sides of the House believe that the law should stay as it is. A mere 4 per cent. believe that the law should be changed so that householders are permitted to use any means—as the Bill states—to defend their homes in the case of burglary. However, 40 per cent.—so a total of 44 per cent.—believe that the law should be changed so that householders are permitted to use greater force, but not any means whatsoever, to defend their homes in the case of burglary.
	The public, in radio and press polls, have made their view abundantly plain. The House has a clear duty to listen to that public voice, as well as to the honourably expressed views of hon. Members on both sides of the House. The balance at the moment is a fine one. A significant minority of hon. Members, without having heard the arguments that I have made today, believe that the prevailing circumstances warrant change.
	I received this morning a letter containing a copy of an article written by Mr. Robert Henderson. I wish to place parts of it on the record, because they are relevant. The article defines the right to self-defence in English law and it states:
	"The law on reasonable force as it is presently interpreted goes something like this: if you are attacked with a knife you may defend yourself with a knife: if you are attacked with bare fists you may defend yourself likewise. Do more in either instance and you will be in danger of being charged with an offence against the person, anything from common assault to murder. Pedantic proportionality is all. If you carry on assaulting your assailant after he is disabled, you will most likely face charges. If you have the opportunity to run away but do not, that may count against you in any assessment of whether you should be prosecuted."
	[Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound) that only Ministers may approach the officials in the Box. He should resume his seat.

Roger Gale: I thought for a moment that the hon. Member for Ealing, North had been promoted to Parliamentary Private Secretary.
	Mr. Henderson calls the present law
	"demonstrably absurd. It assumes that people under attack can reasonably be expected to make judgments in the heat of the moment which in reality require calm consideration."
	That is the thrust of the argument. At the moment, the law assesses reasonable force, but it is not the law under threat, whether in broad daylight or at dead of night. The person under such threat is the only person who can reasonably assess reasonable force in the circumstances. The Under-Secretary may oppose the Bill in principle, but I ask her to recognise that this measure, or something like it, has considerable support inside this House and very considerable support—probably a significant majority—outside it. I believe the technical structure of the Bill to be largely perfect, but it is the job of the Committee to address any imperfection.
	I should like to think that this House will allow the Bill to receive its Second Reading unopposed and that it will let us do our job in Committee to address the concerns of hon. Members on both sides of the House. If we fail to satisfy their legitimate demands, there will be future opportunities on Third Reading or Report to kill the Bill. But to do so now would be a slap in the face of a very concerned British public.

Stephen Pound: Mr. Deputy Speaker, I apologise for my unwitting solecism earlier. I meant no disrespect to you or to the House.
	I thank the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) for the generosity of his introduction, particularly where it strayed into the personal. He said that the Bill was part pedigree, part mongrel. We heard a thoroughly pedigree speech from the hon. Gentleman. Now the House will hear from me. [Laughter.]
	With your indulgence, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should like to respond specifically to the question of pedigree that was raised by the hon. Gentleman, a man more familiar with the byways of the BBC than I ever will be. I remember with great affection the time when we were co-presenters on a Sunday morning on LBC. He may not have enjoyed it, but our listeners did. I know that because I spoke to both of them. [Laughter.] I enjoyed it immensely.
	I would suggest that the listeners' law—which later became the householder's law, or the Tony Martin law—was a genuine attempt to connect the people of this country to the process of legislation passed by this House. The idea was not some populist attempt to increase ratings, but a genuine attempt by a responsible broadcaster—the best public service broadcaster in the world, the BBC—to connect the two; the people of this country and the process of legislation.
	The impression might have been given that I was   some publicity-hungry jackanapes seeking to lendhis name to any passing fad or fancy. [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."] I deny that. In November 2002, following the private Member's Bill ballot—and by a combination of extreme good luck and the able assistance of Baroness Gardner of Parkes—I was able to bring a private Member's Bill to this House.
	I applied again and was asked whether, if I were lucky enough to be drawn again, I would take soundings from the nation. What parliamentarian could resist the temptation to take the pulse of the nation and then respond to it? We asked the people what legislation they wanted and came up with a shortlist of 20. They were whittled down to five by a group of three people, overseen by a fine, capable and generous journalist of great standing, Kevin Marsh. The others were myself, a journalist—one Julia Hartley-Brewer—and a tradesman from this parish who, at the time, ran a bookshop up the road and is now, oddly enough, the Conservative candidate for North Norfolk, Iain Dale.
	I make no secret of the fact that the Bill that I wished to propose was the Organ Donation (Presumed Consent and Safeguards) Bill, which seemed to me a sensible piece of legislation, very much in keeping with the public mood, relevant and necessary. There were other proposals, including a measure to ban Christmas music being played in shops in October—a sound, sane and sensible piece of legislation that commended itself to many. Another would perhaps not have been so popular in certain quarters of this building—a Bill on term limits for Prime Ministers. Another was on overtaking on the left on motorways. Mr. Iain Dale, the Conservative candidate for North Norfolk, was particularly anxious to push what was referred to at the time as "Tony Martin's law." Despite that, when the shortlist of five was drawn up, the overwhelming majority of votes was in favour of the organ transplants Bill.
	However, as Christmas approached and, no doubt, many Radio 4 listeners headed for the ski slopes, the airwaves and e-mail ether were filled with a sudden flurry of messages that had been stimulated in particular by two organisations that I, in a fairly sheltered life, had never previously encountered: Cybershooters and Firearms News. The two websites—I believe that that is the proper technical term—advised people from Alabama to South Africa to e-mail quickly in support of what they described as "a Tony Martin law." By Christmas eve, my worst fears had been realised. Not for the first time, I was to be lonely at Christmas, disappointed when the reasonable and decent proposal disappeared beneath the wintry blizzard of e-mails.
	Yes, I admit it, I can do no other for I cannot lie—well, I can, but shall not on this occasion—that when on new year's day, having just climbed a mountain in the lake district and paused for a refreshing cigarette and pull on my hip flask, I was asked by the BBC for my reaction, I might have used language that veered toward the unparliamentary. It was an honest reaction, and honesty in a politician is to be treasured. The fact remains that a large number of people—some 37 or 38 per cent. of those who voted—supported the idea of the present Bill. The hon. Member for North Thanet is absolutely right in one aspect alone of his speech: there is genuine public concern, an issue of perception and fear. However, the worst possible way to respond to that is to introduce a piece of legislation such as the one before the House today, because that will do nothing to allay people's fears or to resolve the problem, but everything to terrify people.

Eric Forth: I am interested in this part of the hon. Gentleman's analysis. Like me, he will recall such measures as the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 and, even worse, the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 and preceding firearms legislation, which were knee-jerk reactions to a public perception or public fear at the time. I am sure that he agrees that since most firearms were banned in this country, the number of crimes committed using firearms has rocketed. In some ways, I accept the hon. Gentleman's point that we should never legislate in haste, simply in reaction to a perceived problem at the time.

Stephen Pound: There are certain sentences that I would not wish to see on my tombstone: one is, "I entirely agree with the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst." However, those who remember species called something like "the Doggo Argentino" and "the Japanese giant mastiff" being introduced into the Dangerous Dogs Bill are only too well aware of the problems of that type of legislation. I was counselling precisely against that. I suggest that the Bill before us would not only fail to resolve a problem, but make matters worse. That is what deeply concerns me.
	May I respond to two specific points before I come to the meat and substance—fairly thin substance, but substance it is for all that—of the Bill? I certainly will not attack the hon. Member for North Thanet. He and I once spent St. Patrick's day in Ottawa. While I remember little of the detail of that day, a general warm feeling of happiness remains with me. I hope the same remains with him. He mentioned Robin Baker-White. I have written to the former lord-lieutenant, whom I consider a good, decent and honourable gentleman. I have also discussed the matter with his Member of Parliament, the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier).
	Mr. Baker-White's shotgun was not confiscated. It was taken away for standard analysis, as happens in every single case in this country where a firearm is discharged, except on a rifle range. The shotgun was tested and test-fired. The bore and the rifling were checked against the cartridge, and the shotgun was returned to him—end of story. That is an example in which the perception is far, far worse than the reality.
	A few weeks ago, the trial took place of a man in the north-west who stabbed an intruder to death with a bread knife. That man was found innocent; the case was dismissed. What happened was considered to be justifiable and the defence within common law was heard and agreed to.
	The second name to be mentioned is that of Mr. Tony Martin. I have to say that building a case on the foundations provided by Mr. Martin is doomed to failure. I have met Mr. Martin on a number of occasions and I say quite frankly that, for all his eccentricities and all his fairly bizarre behaviour, there are certain aspects of his self-justification that no Member of the House would in any way support. To a certain extent, that taints the thrust and content of the Bill.

Roger Gale: First, the hon. Gentleman must be aware—I am sure he was listening—that I specifically said that my colleagues and I have carefully not founded the Bill on that ground for precisely those reasons. If he were to speak to Robin Baker-White, former high sheriff of Kent, he would find that considerable distress and concern were caused by what happened at the time and afterwards in terms of the legal process. Is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that under the Bill the person who was acquitted of stabbing somebody with a bread knife would have been in court at all and subject to that further distress?

Stephen Pound: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that and I also note for the record the correction that Robin Baker-White was high sheriff of Kent, not a lord-lieutenant. I am not greatly familiar with the hierarchy of the shires. When a person is killed, there has to be an inquest, a hearing and some legal procedure. That happened in this case. Common law applied and the accused was acquitted. I do not think that that is a problem.

Richard Bacon: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Stephen Pound: In a moment. I can understand the reluctance of the hon. Member for North Thanet to have the matter associated with the name of Mr. Tony Martin. While I appreciate and understand that, and would wish to accommodate him, I must tell him that there is no way in which the Bill can be divorced from the name of Tony Martin. That is impossible. Before I explain why in detail, I give way to a Member who represents somewhere else in Norfolk.

Richard Bacon: South Norfolk. The hon. Gentleman is right in saying that there has to be an inquiry of some kind if there is a death. He used the word "inquest", and of course he is right about that as well, but there does not have to be a prosecution. That is the point that my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet is making. Surely the hon. Gentleman agrees with that.

Stephen Pound: The hon. Gentleman displays the nimbleness of wit that I admired so much when we were at university together, although I should say that I was a mature student at the time. If one is using the common law defence, one has to offer that defence in some forum. Clearly, the Crown Prosecution Service could decide not to prosecute but, in the interests of transparency and precedent, it is far more logical and sensible for there to be an examination and an exoneration. Exoneration in court is far more significant and telling than the bureaucratic tick of a box that says that there will not be a Crown Prosecution Service action. That is far more important. I give way to another rural Member of Parliament.

Matthew Green: I fully concur with virtually everything that the hon. Gentleman has said. There is a problem if things do not go to trial, which can be for reasons other than to establish guilt or innocence. There may be a lack of evidence, so there could be uncertainty in people's minds as to whether someone was guilty or innocent of a crime. It is far more satisfactory to find people not guilty in court. After all, British law works on the principle of innocent until proven guilty.

Stephen Pound: The hon. Gentleman makes a telling point. I grew to admire his intellect when we shared a cabin in the Royal Navy, although I was a mature entrant. It is precisely that. Had this particular case not gone to trial, there would have been any number of possible interpretations as to why it did not. That decision is crucial from the point of view of the exoneration of the individual and the creation of a precedent. The process must be seen as it is. The hon. Member for North Thanet talked about perceptions. We must realise how important this issue is. Whereas a perception may be an intangible thing that one cannot get a grip on, we can influence its drift and direction.
	As I said, I have met Mr. Martin on a couple of occasions and I found him at the time perfectly amiable. He was, as I say, a tad eccentric. I cannot blame him for having an uncle who founded the National Front. I have some doubt about the fact that he drew £87,000 out of a bank in Swadlincote and failed to declare it when he made an application for legal aid. He has certainly made a number of utterly bizarre statements, including
	"I can assure you; most people who have had an association with me are never quite the same again".
	Following a visit to the Cubana restaurant, which may be known to certain right hon. and hon. Members on the Opposition Benches, he said:
	"I have never heard such a racket in all my life. I wouldn't be so rude as to say anything at the time but if I had a bloody shotgun I'd soon quieten that place down".
	He also said that
	"Women are a dish to be savoured . . . a bit like peas"
	and that
	"People used to say I talked a load of rubbish but personally I think they just don't understand me."
	That may give the impression of a slightly eccentric farmer living fairly far in the country, but what I would like to say now has to be said on the Floor of the House at some stage today, because it has not often been said before. We have talked about Tony Martin and the law. We have not talked about Fred Barras. He was 16 when he was shot in the back with an illegally held pump-action shotgun. He died without the last rites, with his back to his murderer. He will always be 16 because he will never see another birthday.
	Do we think, for all the sins of Fred Barras, for all the crimes that he committed, that that boy was so beyond redemption, was so incapable of being saved, of ever turning over a new leaf and becoming a responsible member of society, that he deserved the fate that he met in that lonely farm house in Norfolk in the middle of the night, as he turned to flee and a second blast of the shotgun caught him in the back and ended his life there and then, where he died lonely, without benefit of the clergy? Do we honestly believe that any 16-year-old cannot be redeemed? Do we believe that the whole criminal justice system of this country is so mired in failure that no person can ever, ever take another path in life? Do we believe that at the age of 16, one has cast one's life so much in stone that one will never, ever see another way of living? In the case of Fred Barras that, sadly, will never be known. Fred Barras is dead.
	Fred Barras was killed by a man who served a few years in prison and became a national hero for it. Fred Barras was killed by a man who influences debate and discussion not just in the House, but throughout the country to this day and will continue to do so. Those people who wish to prop up a political career with the bones of a 16-year-old boy are nothing but despicable. I mean nobody in the House today when I say that. We may talk about such marvellous concepts as an English person's home being his or her castle—yes, theoretically, let us do so—but let us never forget that behind the theory, behind the parliamentary draftsmanship, behind the fine words, we can still see the dead body of a 16-year-old boy. As far as I am concerned, nothing can ever justify that.
	If somebody broke into my house or attacked my 16-year-old daughter, yes I would use a baseball bat. I would use whatever came to hand, but it would be proportionate and on the basis of the facts at the time. I would not have prepared it. I do not prop a bat behind the front door. I would not illegally obtain a pump-action shotgun, I would not remove the treads from the stairwell. I would not re-arrange the room to create a trap, and most of all, I do not think that any hon. Member would ever do as Mr. Martin did: shoot someone in the back as they ran away. I would not do that.
	I am not some whingeing, Milquetoast, bed-wetting, muesli-scoffing, sandal-wearing liberal. I do not believe in any nonsense about inviting the burglars in to talk them through their unhappy childhood and say, "It's all society's fault, isn't it? It's not really yours." If somebody breaks into my gaff, they get a slap—no two ways about it. What they do not get is a cartridge in the back; nor should they. So I am not prepared to support any piece of legislation that, wittingly or unwittingly, opens the door to the murder of 16-year-olds.
	I may have been described as "pliant" in the excellent John McVicars book about the Martin case. I am insulted even more grievously that I am referred to as a "leftie". I can accept those accusations, but even I have my limits. Even I have a point below which I will not sink, and I will not join the inchoate howl of populism that has built up around the ludicrous case of a sadly eccentric man, which ignores the death of a 16-year-old boy.
	The Bill has the great advantage of brevity, which is much to be commended. If it achieves nothing else, it will have achieved a further measure of public debate. The hon. Member for North Thanet has been extraordinary in the dedication and devotion that he gives to certain causes. His work in the field of animal welfare has a national and an international reputation. He is a man who has stood on the ice floes of northern Canada to stop people clubbing baby seals to death. Whereas that may not find favour with the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), it finds favour with many of us.
	However, the Bill that the hon. Gentleman has brought before us today is not just fundamentally flawed in intent. The content also needs re-examination. Clause 1(1) refers to the occupier of a dwelling. Is a squatter an occupier of a dwelling? There is no legal definition of an occupier. The Bill does not refer to "the legal occupier" or "the authorised occupier". If a group of squatters break into a house, they are then the occupiers of the dwelling. They happen to be tooled up with a few shotguns. Somebody comes round who is a friend of the rightful owner. Lo and behold, they get their head shot off. According to clause 1(1), that is entirely acceptable, and even more so in the case of anyone who is in the dwelling with the licence of the occupier. So if the squatter brings half a dozen friends round for a rave, or whatever they get up to, that is also covered.

Nick Palmer: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Stephen Pound: Yes, because I am probably wrong.

Nick Palmer: I fully agree with the commitment of the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) to animal welfare and other issues. He made the point that it would be no excuse if the person breaking in were on drugs or mentally ill, but he does not appear to have considered the possibility that the occupier could be on drugs or mentally ill. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a serious consideration?

Stephen Pound: If one opens the door to hell, one cannot define what comes out of it. The state of mind of someone breaking into a property should be taken into consideration, but it is not a justification—it is something that we should consider after the act. When a person is killed, they lose the right to consideration of their state of mind, which is the danger with this Bill.

Matthew Green: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he is being generous with his time. May I suggest another example of how odd the Bill is? If members of the intelligence services entered a house, which is legitimately occupied by people engaged in drug dealing, organised crime or terrorism, in order to place devices to obtain intelligence, and they were shot in the process, the Bill would apparently let the occupiers of the property off, because a person had entered and they felt afraid. The occupiers could legitimately shoot a police officer or member of the security services in those circumstances.

Stephen Pound: I agree with the hon. Gentleman's intervention. The nomenclature for the Bill should be the Kenneth Noye Bill, not the Tony Martin Bill. You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, do not need reminding that Kenneth Noye is a convicted gangster and road-rage killer who was involved with some extremely serious criminals. He shot and killed a person in the garden of his house, and the man whom he shot and killed was a police officer. Kenneth Noye's defence was that an Englishman's home is his castle, that he saw someone skulking in the shrubbery in the middle of the night, and that he killed them. I am sorry, but if we are to come down on anybody's side, I am on the side of the police, not Kenneth Noye. The minute that we open this Pandora's box, we will get those sorts of problems.
	I genuinely find it difficult to understand why the hon. Member for North Thanet is promoting the Bill, but I respect the sincerity of his emotions. Clause 1(2) states:
	"not guilty of an offence by reason of any act",
	and I cannot go down that road. This is not permissive legislation; this is blank cheque legislation. One could boil someone in a basement—that is an act. One could cut someone's throat—that is an act. Under the Bill, any act is permissible.
	I cannot believe that any hon. Member can support in their heart or in their head a Bill that says that anyone can do anything to anyone if they feel that that person is entering the premises that they currently occupy, whether they are dealing crack cocaine, keeping an eye out for plain clothes policemen, running a racket or simply squatting in a property. The reference to "any act" is simply not on.
	The fundamental point, which I alluded to twice, concerns perception. The hon. Member for North Thanet said that people perceive that the balance has shifted in favour of the criminal and away from the householder. If that is so, we have a duty to do something about it, but we are not obliged to give a knee-jerk response, which is what this Bill represents.
	Let us think through the logic. In response to the idea that it is not merely permissible but desirable for us to defend our homes with shotguns, I would have to say that 98 per cent. of people should not be let anywhere near a shotgun. I think that most people would share that view. It may be all very well for people such as Robin Baker-White, who is a man of exemplary background and good character, but if we authorise the shotgun defence for one or two people, be they former high sheriffs or not, we are turning our backs on the truly weak and vulnerable people—the elderly pensioners who are shivering behind their doors in fear in my constituency and in many others. It is not good enough to say to an elderly pensioner, "You may be terrified of crime, but don't worry—get yourself a shotgun, and if anything happens, use it." That is reprehensible and despicable.
	The defence of everybody in this country—high sheriffs and pensioners alike—requires a proper, efficient, responsive police force backed by the Crown Prosecution Service and supported in Parliament: a mechanism that in its totality punishes the malefactor and defends the innocent. We should be working towards better, stronger and more efficient policing to defend everybody. The shotgun defence will not work for my weak pensioner constituents. They cannot defend themselves with knives, cudgels or knuckledusters—they need the police.
	Were we eventually to agree to the Bill, we would immediately send out one signal above all: the rule of law no longer runs and confidence in the police has disappeared. That would be not just a return to the politics of the caveman era, but a move towards the law enforcement of Texas, Tombstone and Dodge City. I cannot believe that we really want a nation in which the standards of Texas are applied; I would find that appalling, as, I hope, would many others. We need a public defence force—a police force—to defend and represent us. We should be directing our efforts towards further supporting and enhancing their role, not towards vigilantism and defending a man—Mr. Martin—who is at best eccentric and at worst a murderer.

Edward Leigh: The hon. Gentleman knows how much I respect him, but he is wrong to try to defeat the arguments by constantly referring to Mr. Martin. If he reads the Bill carefully, he will see, as I do as a lawyer, that it would not have protected Mr. Martin, because it makes it clear that one has to be acting in self-defence or in defence of one's property, and the intruder was running away at the time. The hon. Gentleman should forget about Mr. Martin and deal with the contents of the Bill.

Stephen Pound: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right; I would not have mentioned Mr. Martin had he not been mentioned by the promoter of the Bill.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Stephen Pound: I shall just finish replying to the hon. Gentleman. I agree that the Bill probably would not have applied to Mr. Martin. That makes it all the more imperative that we recognise that the existing common law defence applies. We would do that no favours were we to enact the Bill, because it would not only muddy the waters but corrupt a stream of jurisprudence that has flowed for thousands of years. It may not be perfect, but it is probably the least imperfect way of resolving such situations.

Nick Palmer: I believe that Mr. Martin would have a defence under clause 1(2)(b), whereby he does not have to show that he is acting in self-defence, merely that the person against whom he has acted "is, or . . . would be" a trespasser, as Mr. Barras was.

Stephen Pound: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but as I am one of the few Members of Parliament who is neither a barrister nor a solicitor—in fact, my only acquaintance with the law has been from the defendant's perspective—I am simply unqualified to comment further on that point.

Edward Leigh: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Stephen Pound: I will certainly give way to someone who knows far more than I do.

Edward Leigh: I very much hope that we can clear this matter up during this debate. It is clear that, in order to be protected by the Bill, one of the people concerned would have to be a trespasser and the other would have to be acting in self-defence or to protect their property.

Stephen Pound: I thank the hon. Gentleman not just on my behalf but on behalf of the House. That was extremely interesting and a very good piece of advice. I am a little worried that I might now get a bill for 200 guineas—[Hon. Members: More!"] I am reminded by those who know more than I do that it should be 2,000 guineas.

Andrew Stunell: It is being argued that the Bill does not deal with the Tony Martin defence. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should direct himself to the provisions in clause 1(2)(a)(iv) and (v), which state that one has only to believe, reasonably or not, that one is apprehending B or otherwise preventing crime to be justified in going ahead and shooting.

Stephen Pound: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. I am conscious that other hon. and particularly right hon. Gentlemen wish to speak, so I do not want to detain the House for too long. However, the use of the words "to apprehend" in clause 1(2)(a)(iv) gave me considerable pause; I wonder what precisely they mean. In all honesty, "to apprehend" could mean to say "Stand fast!", which would be a reasonable instruction. Alternatively, it could mean physically to apprehend someone.
	We have a problem, and even Dr. Pangloss could not deny that it is a real and genuine one. I would suggest that it is one of the fear of crime and the horror that certain very dramatic high-profile cases engender in the people of this nation. We have to address that problem, and I said earlier that the more mature and responsible way to do that is through the existing structures of criminal law, jurisprudence and the police force, rather than through the lawless, shotgun, wild west vigilantism that—for all the decency, humanity and generosity of spirit of the hon. Member for North Thanet—runs through the Bill. The shadow of the six-shooter lies across the Bill, and I would not normally associate that with a man of such sensitivities.
	I genuinely hope that the Bill does not become law. I do not think that it can, because it is unworkable. More importantly, I hope that everyone in the House and outside it will unite around the real problem of lawlessness. We need to defend Tony Martin; he deserves that, and he has the right to a defence. Equally, however, we need to remember that no 16-year-old deserves to die in circumstances such as those.

Eric Forth: I want to pick up one of the key phrases that the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound) has just rather usefully given us. That is, "We have a problem." That is the essence of the argument that my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) is making in the Bill. The difficulty with what the hon. Member for Ealing, North has just said—in what I can only describe as an uncharacteristic rant—is that, in pretending to recognise the problem, he then went on to deny any recognition of it. We must give the Bill much more serious consideration than he suggested.
	I was going to indulge in an analysis of the role of the BBC in this matter. I felt that my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet was unduly generous to the BBC. I will not allow myself to do so, however, because other Members want to speak, and as one of the Bill's sponsors, I do not want to be party to denying the Bill time. I was also going to pull the leg of the hon. Member for Ealing, North, but I will not do that either. I want to restrict myself to the Bill and to why it is important and relevant.
	I want to return to the phrase, "We have a problem." The problem is twofold. There is a problem of perception, which has been mentioned both by my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet and the hon. Member for Ealing, North. We should be very worried about that perception. To the extent that people have come to believe that the law, both judicial and police, no longer adequately protects them, we in the House, and the Government of the day, are letting them down. That is a very serious matter.
	The hon. Member for Ealing, North wanted to suggest that, if we had a sufficient number of police officers, little old ladies would feel secure in their houses. Sadly, I do not think that that could ever be so. My party has a marvellous policy of employing 40,000 more police officers, paid for, incidentally, by an even more radical policy on asylum. Even were we to implement that policy, it would not necessarily give householders the security that we want to give them. It might go some way in that direction, but I do not see that any number of police officers would necessarily give people a sense of security in their homes. Something else must therefore be done. His argument, admirable though that part of it may have been, does not therefore even begin to address the problem of people's increasing feeling of insecurity in their own homes.
	We must make a distinction between the unease that people may feel on the street and the phenomenon of social misbehaviour and related issues, which the Government, in fairness, are trying to tackle—I am sure that we will support them when it is appropriate—and what we are talking about now. We are talking about people in a dwelling in which they should feel secure, and someone entering that dwelling, either in pursuit of burglary or something worse, such as assault on a person. Let us not forget that that is the phenomenon with which we are dealing. What we are saying is that the presumption should be that the person in the dwelling is entitled to security, protection and, if necessary, self-protection, and that the person who enters the dwelling is doing something that is illegal and wicked.

Nick Palmer: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Bill, as drafted, kicks in from the moment that such a person touches the garden gate in the approach to my house, because the person will then be seeking to gain entry to my garden, which is covered by the Bill? At that point, if I consider that person to be a potential intruder, I will be entitled to take any action without the force of law applying.

Eric Forth: The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. That is a matter for proper consideration. At this point, procedurally, those of us who are present in the House must decide whether we are prepared to give the Bill a Second Reading, because we are content with the principle of the Bill, and then perfectly rightly, we may pick up such points in Committee. I will be happy to debate that matter with him in Committee should the Bill reach that stage, as it is a point that should be considered. If someone is acting in a threatening manner at the border of the curtilage of my property, there is a case that I may even then be able to take necessary action. If not—turning the argument briefly on its head—surely we will not say that, if someone at my garden gate or at my hedge is acting in a threatening manner, perhaps threatening my young children, my wife or other members of my family, even then I cannot take any reasonable action. That would again put me at a disadvantage against the person who threatens my property and my family.
	There is a real debate to be had—I accept that. For the moment, I would be content to go along with the words in my hon. Friend's Bill—it is my Bill as well, if I may say so, because I am proud to be a sponsor of it—but that could well be a matter for detailed debate. At this stage, however, we are considering the principle.
	What worries me, and many others, takes us back to the argument presented so eloquently by the hon. Member for Ealing, North. On whose side do we make the presumption? Notwithstanding his eloquence, I concluded that he was arguing that the intruder should be given the benefit of the doubt and even the protection of the law, because to do otherwise would somehow be wicked, while the home owner should be constrained in every possible way when responding to intrusion or invasion.
	That is the case whether the hon. Gentleman likes it or not. It makes no odds if he is not wearing his sandals today. Even if he is not a leftie, that does not matter either. When he reads Hansard, as I know that he will—for we all look at Hansard to see what we said the previous day: it is one of our little privileges and eccentricities—I think that he will acknowledge, in his generous way, that that is the only interpretation that can be placed on his interpretation.
	Our own view is that surely, in any reasonable, civilised, law-abiding society, the presumption should be in favour of the innocent occupier of a dwelling, not the person who is breaking the law and entering that dwelling with intent to do we know not what.

Stephen Pound: Let me say, for the record—although I speak as one who genuinely does not read his words in Hansard, as I find it embarrassing enough to hear them as I utter them—that I intended to give no such impression. If I did, it was wholly unwitting. I am on record as having consistently said that cases in which an intruder sues a householder because the miscreant tripped over a carpet and bruised his knee are ludicrous and that the presumption should be entirely in favour of the home owner. If I gave a different impression it was erroneous and unintended, and I apologise.

Eric Forth: I am more than happy to accept the hon. Gentleman's reinterpretation of what he said, or what I thought he said, but let me present him with a challenge.
	My hon. Friend's Bill constitutes a serious attempt to recognise the problem—the hon. Gentleman said that there was a problem; at least we agree on that—to respond to public unease and to correct something that is increasingly thought to have gone badly wrong in our judicial system and in the relationship between the occupier of a dwelling and the violator of that dwelling. The trouble with the hon. Gentleman's argument is that, in the absence of the Bill, there would seem to be no other solution on offer. It appears that we are content to drift along, accepting the weaknesses of the law and the Crown Prosecution Service, the constraints that are increasingly imposed on the police—not just in terms of their numbers, but in terms of what they can effectively do on the ground—and the helplessness of occupiers who feel that they are being besieged by law-breakers and are increasingly unable to do anything about it.
	The importance of the Bill lies in the fact that it seeks to give hope to people who find themselves in that position. We should bear it in mind that occupiers, whether owners or tenants, represent the vast majority in our society. They are the silent majority; they are the law-abiding majority. Wicked people who break the law and invade other people's property still constitute a relatively small number, although some would think it a growing number; it depends on how we interpret the latest statistics. In a sense, it does not matter how many or how few of them there are. They are breaking the law and causing extreme upset and distress. An hour or two ago, in this very Chamber, we were told by a Minister, no less, that his property had been violated and told of the sense of outrage that he felt.
	What we are discussing is not a rare occurrence but all too frequent. We are saying with the Bill that it is our duty as custodians of the law to respond to people's feelings of unease and to the natural demand of owners and occupiers to have the proper protection of the law—not just the protection of the police, although of course that is important. I hope that we all share a desire that that should be improved. But the law of this land should be framed in such a way as to give maximum protection to law-abiding occupiers of premises, rather than seeming to lean over backwards to favour the people who are breaking and violating the law, entering premises and causing such upset.
	Perhaps uncharacteristically, I shall today keep my comments brief, because I want to give the Bill a fair wind. I am, after all, a sponsor of it. There is much more that I should like to say, but I hope that on this occasion I have given a sense of why I support the Bill, and am proud and happy to do so, and why I think that the hon. Member for Ealing, North, in spite of his eloquence, has not caught the mood of the voters—perhaps not even of his voters. I hope that the Bill can make progress today and that I and other hon. Members will be able to go into some of its details in Committee.

Nick Palmer: I do not criticise the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) for introducing the Bill, even though I disagree with it. That is for two reasons. First, I do not criticise him anyway because he is a fellow officer of the all-party animal welfare group. Secondly, by introducing the Bill he is reflecting a genuine area of public concern. From some of the things that the hon. Gentleman and his co-sponsor the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) have said, I cannot help feeling that, whereas in the previous debate we had some probing amendments that were not designed to be taken completely at face value, we have here something of a probing Bill, and that they are not entirely convinced that the Bill as it stands is to be taken completely seriously.

Roger Gale: I am delighted to clarify the position for the hon. Gentleman. We are determined that the Bill will be taken very seriously indeed, although that does not mean that we necessarily believe that it is perfect as it stands.

Nick Palmer: As with a probing amendment, all that we can do is discuss the Bill as it stands. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not wish us to do otherwise and we cannot discuss hypothetical Bills that might have been presented.
	I accept, as I think will all hon. Members who speak, that there is a serious concern among the general public about what they perceive as a lack of clarity over how far householders may go to protect their property. One of my hon. Friends recently had a pub landlord, a very powerful figure—although I appreciate that his was not a domestic property—who felt unable to prevent a group of youths from taking away a case of champagne because they said to him, "If you lay a finger on us, we'll have you for assault." The landlord felt unsure about whether it would be proportionate if he prevented them from taking away his property and did not know what he could or could not do. While he was thinking about it, they disappeared up the road. Many people feel that such examples are all too common. People are not sure where they stand, so they feel that they have to err on the side of caution in case they are prosecuted. I accept, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman is reflecting a legitimate concern.
	The ultimate protection in this matter is the system of jury trial. There are cases that we have discussed in other contexts, such as complicated fraud cases, in which there is a case for saying that jury trial is not the best way of reaching justice. But in cases such as those under discussion, jury trial is absolutely essential, because in deciding whether the householder has responded proportionately, it is very important that 12 ordinary men and women make that judgment. I have discussed this issue with my constituents and the hon. Gentleman has doubtless discussed it with his. Most people seem to agree that 12 randomly selected members of the public are likely to have a fair sense of what is a reasonable and proportionate reaction, and what is not.

Richard Bacon: I am listening to the hon. Gentleman with interest. Does he not understand that the law-abiding householder's fear that if he acts, he will be had up in court, is a deterrent to his acting at all? As a result, the presumption is in favour of the burglar and against the householder, which is part of the problem.

Nick Palmer: The hon. Gentleman is echoing the point that I made a couple of minutes ago. The problem is that people are uncertain, and they therefore feel inhibited in taking action that a jury would in fact consider reasonable and proportionate conduct. We cannot dismiss this issue.
	There are two basic problems with the proposal, which achieves clarity at the expense of common sense: proportionality, and the people whom it affects. On proportionality, as the hon. Gentleman has stressed, the Bill suspends the entire criminal code if the householder—according to their own judgment, and with no other opinion involved—believes that they are threatened by trespass. As has been emphasised, in such circumstances any act is then explicitly authorised. Let us suppose that the householder believes that the person who has walked into his garden is an intruder. If the householder is of a somewhat paranoid persuasion, he might think that there is a second intruder. Under the Bill, he would be entitled not only to detain the supposed intruder, but to torture him in order to establish whether he had accomplices.

Richard Bacon: The hon. Gentleman says that the householder would be entitled to torture an intruder. Where in the Bill is reference made to torture?

Nick Palmer: I shall read the relevant passage. Clause 1(2) states:
	"Where this section applies, A is not guilty of an offence by reason of any act"—
	any act, such as torture—
	"done by him in relation to the person . . . who is attempting to gain entry to the dwelling, if A believes"
	that he is acting, among other things, "in prevention of crime", and if he believes that the person concerned
	"is, or . . . would be, a trespasser."
	In the example that I gave, the householder believes that he is trying to prevent crime by apprehending a second suspected intruder, and that the person he is torturing is a trespasser. Under the terms of the proposal, he would be immune from the process of law. That seems to me, and would seem to most people, disproportionate.
	We have talked about an Englishman's home being his castle. An ancestor of mine called Black Douglas had a castle on the borders of Scotland. A neighbouring Laird sent an emissary to discuss a particular feature of their border. When the emissary did not return, the Laird sent a further emissary to ask what had happened to the first one. Black Douglas sent the second emissary back with the message, "You can pick up the first emissary any time—he doth but lack his head." In principle, such a process would be legal under the Bill, so long as my ancestor Black Douglas believed that the first emissary was a trespasser, and that by cutting off his head he was preventing crime.
	We have discussed whether Tony Martin would have been protected by the legislation.

Edward Leigh: Was the hon. Gentleman's ancestor acting in self-defence or to protect his property at the time?

Nick Palmer: We can only speculate, but my ancestor would undoubtedly have felt that he was preventing crime, which is covered by clause 1(2)(a)(v).
	Let us move on to Tony Martin. I do not want the public to feel that we are treating the Bill frivolously. We all indulge in slightly wilder excursions at some time, but I want to treat the Bill seriously. Tony Martin would, under clause 1(2)(a)(v), be entitled to believe that by shooting Fred Barras he was preventing crime. Indeed, he probably was preventing crime by shooting him, because Fred Barras had a long record of criminal convictions and would likely have gone on to commit some more. Tony Martin could also reasonably say that Fred Barras was a trespasser—no one disputes that. There is no doubt—the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) may disagree—that the Bill would have provided Tony Martin with a defence for his action.

Edward Leigh: We could have an argument about this matter in the courts, whenever the hon. Gentleman wishes, but the fact that the intruder was running away at the time was a crucial consideration for the court and suggests that the Bill would not apply to those circumstances. It would have been very different if the intruder had been running towards Mr. Martin. There, however, he may well have had a defence under existing legislation.

Nick Palmer: The hon. Gentleman makes my point. He says that it would have been difficult, given that Fred Barras was running away, to persuade the courts that Tony Martin could reasonably have thought that he was preventing crime. However, at the very core of the Bill is the assumption that he would not have to show that he was being reasonable. Tony Martin could unreasonably believe that he was preventing crime. It is current law that refers to being "reasonably" of such a belief and proportionate action follows from that, but under the Bill, anyone is entitled to act "unreasonably" without any limit whatever. That is the fundamental flaw in the Bill. Tony Martin is one example, but it is possible to consider more extreme ones. The hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) mentioned intelligence agents intruding on the property of a suspected terrorist.
	That brings me to my second major objection, which is about who the Bill may affect. As I said earlier, one is potentially exposed to the Bill the moment one puts one's hand on the garden gate of a property. That is seen explicitly in clause 4(1), which covers "any yard" or "garden" of a property
	"belonging to it and occupied with it."
	A postman, a Jehovah's witness or anyone else calling on the home and touching the garden gate could—if the occupier believes, reasonably or unreasonably, that the person is an intruder and will be a trespasser when he walks through the gate, or that a crime may be prevented—lawfully be shot. Indeed, the householder would be entitled to do anything. That is clearly indefensible and I do not believe that that can be seriously intended. I appreciate that Bills can always be improved in Committee, but they need a fundamental connection with common sense and reality.
	Let me take another concrete example from real life. A British tourist was visiting the United States—Florida, I believe—and on a rainy night, he went a little astray and walked up a garden path to ask the householder the way. The householder saw a figure approaching his house, in the late evening on a rainy night, took out a gun and shot him dead.
	That was an innocent British tourist who had done nothing wrong. He was not behaving in a threatening manner, and no reasonable person would say that his behaviour could be interpreted as threatening. However, the Bill would not require that the householder be a reasonable person or reasonably interpret such behaviour. Indeed, as I said in an intervention in the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound), if the householder is mentally deranged or under the influence of drugs, it is still not a problem because he would not have to prove that he had acted reasonably. He would merely have to say that in his state of mind at the time he believed that he was preventing crime and that the person approaching his home was a potential trespasser.
	The hon. Member for North Thanet said that the Bill was not about the 12-year-old who kicks a football into a garden and is shot by a blunderbuss. However, under the Bill, if a 12-year-old kicked a ball into a stranger's garden and entered it, the householder would be immune from prosecution if he shot the child, as long as he believed that he was protecting his property and that the child was a trespasser. The child would undoubtedly be a trespasser if he had entered a garden to retrieve a ball. If the householder believed that the child might break his greenhouse by kicking the ball around, he could argue that he was protecting his property by shooting him. One might say that the householder was being unreasonable, but the Bill specifies that the householder does not have to be reasonable. He is entitled to take any action against that 12-year-old child, as long as he believes that he is thereby protecting his property.
	The basic difficulty of the Bill is that it moves away from the time-honoured principle in British law of the reasonable man. In jury trials we are accustomed to the idea that juries are able to assess the circumstances, listen to both sides of the case, and weigh up whether the behaviour of the accused was reasonable or unreasonable.

Eric Forth: The hon. Gentleman is making a good case for detailed examination of the Bill in Committee. But how would he solve the problem that people are increasingly coming to believe that the benefit of the doubt is given by the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts to the perpetrators of crime, not the victims? Is he prepared to concede that that is a problem and that something should be done to address it, even if he does not believe that the Bill does so?

Nick Palmer: Yes, I am. That is the point with which I started my speech. As the right hon. Gentleman may know, at the Government's request the Law Commission is examining the partial defences to murder, which can reduce a charge of murder to manslaughter. Its remit is to consider the partial defences, with particular reference to domestic violence. Part of the Law Commission's study, the results of which are expected this summer, will include the examination of a possible new partial defence of "excessive force in self-defence". It is a complete defence to show that one has used reasonable force in self-defence as judged by a jury. In order to address the uncertainty that we all recognise exists, there is a possibility that the law could encompass excessive force under constrained circumstances. It would not be a total defence but a mitigating factor and would depend on the degree of excessive force applied.
	When the Law Commission comes back with recommendations, we can reasonably discuss where the borderline should be drawn. I concur with the view that it would be better to give greater certainty to householders about where they stand, what they can reasonably do and what they cannot reasonably do. Anyone is entitled to know what is legal and what is not. That is fair. The problem with the Bill is that it starts from the completely ludicrous position that one is allowed to do anything if one believes, no matter how unreasonably, that one is under threat.

Roger Gale: Hard cases make bad law, which is why my right hon. and hon. Friends have studiously avoided the case of Tony Martin. But if hard cases make bad law, extreme examples make bad argument and the hon. Gentleman has been deploying those. The hon. Member for Ealing, North said in terms—it is on the record—that if someone attacked his wife, he would pick up a baseball bat and let him have it. If that blow to the head of the man attacking his wife is legal, is that reasonable force? If not, the hon. Member for Ealing, North will be before the courts. We are saying that the presumption must be on the side of the householder and not the criminal: the intruder.

Nick Palmer: With respect, what the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues are saying is not that the presumption should be on the side of the householder, but the certainty. The Bill offers a complete, 100 per cent. indemnity for any crime committed under certain circumstances, which seems completely disproportionate.
	With respect the hon. Gentleman is missing an opportunity with the Bill. If he had proposed a Bill that, in a more proportionate fashion, had attempted to address the issue of uncertainty, he would have had a more attentive and respectful hearing than has been the case today. I am not calling his motives into question in any way, and he has done us a service in raising an issue of concern to the public. It is important to discuss the subject, but the Bill is not a sensible vehicle on which to respond to that concern.
	The hon. Gentleman accused me of giving extreme examples, so let me give an everyday one. Every weekend, I go out for four hours to visit constituents and go to different parts of the borough each time. The overwhelming majority of my constituents are reasonable people who simulate pleasure at my arrival. They may not really feel it, but they say, "It's a long time since we have seen our MP. It is good to see you."
	I would not claim in the most passionate moments of my devotion to the borough that every resident of my constituency is reasonable, or even sane. I do not want to give a constituent who is not reasonable or sane a licence to kill me because he sees me approaching his house and gets it into his mind that I might be a burglar. I would be a trespasser because I would not yet have his permission to be on his turf. He might get it into his head that I was trying to get at his property and break in.
	As we know, people all too commonly leave doors open or unlocked. It strikes me that, were I a burglar rather than a politician, I would find it easy to break into perhaps one house in 10. However, that fact should not lead people to feel that they are at risk from me.

Stephen Pound: Before my hon. Friend is tempted to change career path, may I ask him whether he recalls in the previous exchange a personalisation of circumstances pertaining to myself? Were the hypothetical situation described by the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) to occur, I would want my day in court. I would not want to be exonerated by a rubber-stamp piece of legislation. Does he accept that that would be the reaction of many people who are robust both in defence of their homes, and in defence of the liberty of the nation?

Nick Palmer: Yes, I do. I admire my hon. Friend in many ways and think that he made one of his best speeches today.
	I am reminded of the doomed presidential candidacy of Michael Dukakis. He was against the death penalty, and when he was asked whether he would want to shoot someone who attacked his wife, he replied, "Yeah, I would, but I don't think my instinctive reaction should be the basis for law." That was an honourable reply; it might not have done him much good politically, but it was correct none the less. As the hon. Member for North Thanet said, we should base the law neither on hard cases nor on extreme emotions. However, the Bill would legalise unreasonable conduct on the part of constituents who unreasonably believe themselves to be threatened. It is a licence for madmen, and we should not pass it.

Richard Bacon: I am a sponsor of the Bill. The hon. Members for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound) and for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer) both referred repeatedly to jury trials, but I think they miss the point. People feel that, in many cases, the actions of a householder should not result in their ending up in court, which is what often happens now. In addition, the fear that that might happen is what restrains householders from acting when they ought to do so and ought to be able to do so knowing that they are safe in the eyes the law.
	Part of the problem is that the law at present is unclear. I refer to an article from The Daily Telegraph of 2 December 2002 by Mr. Alan Judd. It refers to three cases. In the first, a man was convicted for repeatedly stabbing a burglar who had broken into the flat in which he believed his children were sleeping. In the second, a man who felled a violent schizophrenic who was strangling someone, then kicked him when he tried to get up and resume, was arrested by the police—unlike the schizophrenic—and prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service for kicking. In the third—the hon. Member for Ealing, North may have been referring to this case—a man stabbed to death one intruder and seriously wounded another, and the CPS found his use of force to be reasonable.
	Mr. Judd quotes an article in The Sunday Telegraph by Mr. Alasdair Palmer, who wrote that what such cases indicate is that the CPS
	"clearly can't decide where the boundary between the reasonable and unreasonable use of force lies, and thus what the law actually is".
	Mr. Judd asks:
	"How can it be right to prosecute people when the law itself is confused and contradictory? If the lawyers, safe in their offices, can't say what is right, how can we be expected to weigh up the pros and cons during some desperate struggle in the dark? Unclear law is unfair law."
	The hon. Member for Broxtowe referred to certainty, and he is right: the Bill does provide a much higher degree of certainty. If he wants to argue about that in more detail, I should have thought that the place to do so is in Committee.
	I want to raise one other issue, which involves the impact on rural areas. I represent a very rural constituency of 350 square miles. To give the House some idea of its size, the whole of Greater London has 74 constituencies in 650 square miles. Overnight in my constituency there are only two police vehicles with four police officers on patrol. If someone is apprehended, they have to be taken to Norwich or, worse, to King's Lynn to be locked up as there are no custodial facilities elsewhere. It requires only one call on the services of police officers to go into Norwich and the whole southern sector of my constituency—an area of 270 square miles, which is equivalent to nearly half of Greater London—is completely without police protection.
	In Dickleburgh in my constituency, just last Thursday a store was ram raided in the middle of the night. The person who rented the flat above it alerted the police, because he could hear what was going on, but he was told by the police not to go downstairs and intervene in case he came under threat. However, one reason that caused that person not to intervene was fear that if he were to do so, he would be the one to be had up.
	We need a shift in the presumption away from the burglar or law-breaker and towards the householder. There should be a strong presumption against prosecuting any occupant who injures an assailant in some way while resisting the intrusion into his or her home. That is essentially the point that my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) is making in the Bill.
	I have no doubt—my hon. Friend admitted it—that the Bill could be improved. The place to do that is in Committee, and I very much hope that the House will give the Bill a chance to be considered there in more detail. The hon. Members for Broxtowe and for Ealing, North, who have opposed the Bill, have not said what they would do instead. They have both acknowledged that there is a problem and that members of the public out there—

Stephen Pound: rose—

Richard Bacon: I will not give way as other Members wish to speak. Both hon. Members have acknowledged that there is a problem, but they have not suggested what they would do to combat it. I believe that it is for the House of Commons to acknowledge the public concern, which is out there, and respond to that by considering the Bill in detail in Committee. That is what the public want.

Andrew Stunell: We have had a lively debate in which some strong and deeply-held views have been expressed. I thank the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) for bringing the matter to the House, because there is no doubt that the difficult and challenging cases that have been referred to have produced a deep unease among the public. That led to the "Today" programme's ill-fated exercise, much to the embarrassment of the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound). That embarrassment takes some generating.
	The key issue, which we all understand, is how the principle of reasonable force and proportionality applies in such difficult cases. I thank the hon. Gentleman for highlighting the deep problems in basing particular legislation on one or two hard cases, whether that means the Tony Martin case or not. The hon. Gentleman properly drew attention to the Kenneth Noye case, which most of us consider outrageous in the opposite sense.
	It is not only the question of the hard cases that makes it difficult to legislate. I am thinking of soft cases, such as a drunk old man staggering across my open-plan garden and knocking over a gnome. If I opened my door and he said, "Sorry mate, it's the wrong house," whether I was reasonable or not, I would be entitled under the Bill to go out there and stab, strangle, shoot, maim or kill him, because it covers "any act done". I suppose if a drunk young woman were involved in such an incident, I would be entitled to carry out an indecent assault on her. Perhaps the milkman might wake me with a start one morning, and I mistakenly assumed that it was an intruder.
	While the issue is one of great importance, we must recognise that the Bill's framework is seriously and dangerously flawed. I was a bit disappointed in the speech from the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth). It was flexible, as it contradicted absolutely the speeches he has made in numerous Friday debates on private Members' Bills about the need to be careful, proportionate and considered in respect of any proposed legislation. That reminded me that he was a member of the Government when the dangerous dogs legislation was passed.
	There is a kernel of real usefulness in clause 3, although not in its present form. There must surely be a complete defence open to any householder or owner against a claim by an intruder who injures himself penetrating someone's property. Perhaps the Minister may like to comment on how that may be dealt with.
	I want to move on quickly. We have had a worthwhile debate. Some key issues have been raised. Some fundamental matters affecting the basis of our society are at the root of those issues: the sanctity of our homes and property, the rights of the innocent and of the guilty, too, because we live in a civilised society that recognises both.
	Having said all that, I think that the Bill should not be supported by the House. It does not even protect owners because, as one hon. Member pointed out, if one happens to be squatting in the house, one would have all the powers of an owner. It certainly has not got the rest right either. Therefore, with great regret, I say that I believe that it should not receive its Second Reading today.

John Hayes: I will be brief because we need to hear from the Minister and to vote before 2.30. I know that the whole House will wish to do so.
	My hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) has done the House a great service in bringing the Bill before us and in offering the House a full and articulate explanation of its purposes and motives. He described the Bill as essentially about the home. The home is deeply evocative. It is where we return at the end of the day and at the end of all our days, for it is often where the dying choose to go in their last hours.
	The home is the place that Robert Browning considered when abroad: "Oh to be in England now that April's there".

Stephen Pound: "Whoever wakes in England sees, some morning, unaware"—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

John Hayes: The hon. Gentleman is not merely intervening from a sedentary position—he is reciting poetry from a sedentary position.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am not sure that either hon. Gentleman is quoting it correctly.

John Hayes: Your advice is always welcome, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	My hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet said that he sought to defend the home and he is right to do so, for our home has a sanctity, a special place in our hearts. Indeed, Dr. Johnson said
	"To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition".
	G.K. Chesterton said:
	"It is when we pass our own private gate, and open our own secret door, that we step into the land of the giants."
	Therefore, it is right and proper that we should defend the home.
	I wish to say in the plainest possible terms that the good people of our nation are tired of a criminal justice system that appears, at least, to favour the lawless at the expense of the lawful and that, at the same time, has done untold damage to popular faith in the rule of law. The truth is that many of Tony Martin's neighbours, many of the people of Norfolk and of neighbouring Lincolnshire, many of the people of this country were essentially sympathetic to him, but they dare not express that sympathy because of a fear of a politically correct establishment. Because of that establishment, their passion dare not speak its name. Their passion is a Christian sense of right and wrong and a recognition of the malevolence of evil men and evil deeds.
	The Bill seeks to some degree to rebalance the scales in favour of the lawful and to some degree to allow people to do what I suspect every hon. Member present in the Chamber today and those observing our proceedings would do if they were genuinely fearful for their home or their family, and that is to take whatever action they deem to be necessary to defend those special and sacred things.

Stephen Pound: Does not the hon. Gentleman accept what he is proposing is a counsel of despair? Would not it be better for us as a House to support the police and not seek to bypass them?

John Hayes: The rule of law depends on proper authority. The hon. Gentleman, who is a great student of these things, knows that. I do not make a case from the Dispatch Box for people taking the law into their own hands as a matter of course, but if the hon. Gentleman were faced with an imminent danger in his own home, he would not first turn to the telephone to dial the police. He would take action, and that is true of any reasonable person. The Bill takes account of the burden of proof to mitigate the excesses that might result from an over-zealous pursuit of the defence of the innocent under attack.
	The Bill, which seeks to amend the law so that people acting in defence of persons or property would, in specified circumstances, be exempted from both criminal and civil liability, strikes an important chord. We wait to hear the Government's response. They will understand that the Bill represents immense popular pressure for change. It is important that we once again re-affirm people's faith in the fairness, decency and justice of our system of law, for if we do not do so, that system will gradually be diluted and damaged by that lack of faith. It relies on the Government listening to what has been said today and to the people of England.
	I hope we will not hear a cry about civil liberty—liberty was used as a justification for "the terror" in France and as an excuse for slave traders in England. It is a matter not of civil liberties, but of people taking liberties. There is no freedom worth having if one does not have the freedom from fear, and there is no worse fear than fear of invasion of one's special place, one's own home, and the resultant danger to one's family. I wait to hear the Minister's comments. I hope she will understand the passion with which the Bill has been brought, and the very strong feeling of the many people of all parties that lay behind it.

Fiona Mactaggart: We have had an interesting debate on the Bill and we have ranged widely. I thank the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) for introducing the Bill.
	We all recognise the legitimate concerns of householders, particularly those who might be isolated or vulnerable and far from help. They might at any time find themselves called upon to defend themselves or their property against intruders. That concern is real, and we take such concerns seriously. As has been said, it is a commonplace that an Englishman's home is his castle, as is a woman's, and we all have a legitimate right and expectation that we should be able to feel safe in our own homes. But there have been recent cases that have led people to ask themselves, "If I come across an intruder and try to defend myself, could I find myself on the wrong side of the law?" We recognise the public concern about that.
	That is why, in what the hon. Member for North Thanet described as a pop-idol approach to politics, such a substantial proportion of the respondents to the BBC Radio 4 "Today" programme poll supported the Bill. We, too, have received a sizeable number of representations on the subject, so we know how concerned the public are and we need to address those concerns. However, the Bill is not the answer.
	Some of those who have written to the Home Office do not suggest changing the law or allowing householders the freedoms that the Bill would allow them. Rather, they called for more detailed guidance or rules on how they might lawfully react when defending themselves or their property. The example given by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer) of the pub landlord who was worried about whether he could properly prevent a crime illustrates that. Clearly, some of the public concern stems from the fact that people are uncertain about the state of the law, rather than from the belief that the law is not enough to protect them.
	We have issued a booklet entitled "Be Safe, Be Secure", which is a practical guide to crime prevention. It was updated last year and covers all aspects of personal safety at home, including how to deal with intruders. It covers the law of self-defence, including the underlying principles, and it is available from crime reduction officers and neighbourhood watch schemes and on the internet. I understand, of course, that faced with a burglar, the householder is not going to flip to the right page in his booklet. Nevertheless, we need to inform people better about the present state of the law. The present state of the law differs from both the popular perception and from what some hon. Members have implied today. We must bear it in mind that each case is different and that guidelines are needed to set out general principles, and we will see whether we can offer further help.

Edward Leigh: Let us say that an intruder enters my house, I seek to defend my house with a baseball bat and I hit him across the head. He falls to the ground, but tries to rise up again, so I hit him again and he dies. Would I be liable to prosecution?

Fiona Mactaggart: The hon. Gentleman may or may not be liable to prosecution, but he would have the defence of self-defence, and I shall come to exactly what that means and implies. The issue is important, and we must be clear about it, because this debate has not clarified it.
	The best thing is proper protection against crime. I am glad to see the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) returning to his place, because he discussed the Conservative party's proposals to employ 40,000 additional police officers through its fantasy island programme on asylum seekers. The Labour party has introduced record numbers of police officers, which has been part of our substantial success in reducing crime—burglary is down 39 per cent. since the Leader of the Opposition was Home Secretary.

John Hayes: This is about policing, and no party supports the police more than the Conservative party. I fully endorse the Minister's remarks about the importance of providing the police with adequate resources—which, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) said, we intend to do—and giving them special powers. However, that policy cannot be successful unless it is backed up by a criminal justice system that allows the police to do their job, raises their morale and restores public faith in them and the law.

Fiona Mactaggart: Precisely. That is one of the reasons for our series of developments to increase public confidence in our criminal justice system, but the first port of call is to stop people becoming victims in the first place. I expect the House to expect me to make clear the Government's commitment and record of success.
	Under the law at present, a person is entitled to use reasonable force in self-defence or to protect another person or property. What constitutes reasonable force depends on the circumstances of each case, and it is a matter for the courts to decide. Clearly, the force that it is reasonable to use in any given situation depends on the circumstances, the nature of the threat and what it takes to counter that threat; the reaction must be proportionate.
	The hon. Member for North Thanet suggested a pedantic definition of reasonable force, which is not defined in law and is rightly a question for a jury of 12 citizens making up their minds on the basis of the facts of a particular case. The judge will direct the jury, and the circumstances include the situation as the defendant honestly believed it to be.
	Lord Justice Woolf said this about the Martin case:
	"it was for the jury, as the representative of the public, to decide the amount of force which it would be reasonable and the amount of force which it would be unreasonable to use in the circumstances in which they found that Mr Martin believed himself to be in."
	When a defence of self-defence is raised, the prosecution has the burden of satisfying the jury. The jury is entitled to find a defendant guilty only if it is sure that the force used was unreasonable. The hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon), in querying whether prosecution should take place, implied that the reasonableness test was in the hands of the Crown Prosecution Service, but it is not—it is in the hands of the jury.
	The law recognises that in the heat of the moment and in a panic, it may be hard for a householder to assess exactly what level of force is necessary and proportionate. The courts have held that if a person does only what he honestly and instinctively thought necessary to prevent a crime, that would be potent evidence that only reasonable defensive action had been taken. However, the law does not permit an act of retaliation. The punishment of criminals is rightly a matter for the courts: it is not for victims, vigilantes or anyone else to take the law into their own hands. They should not seek to punish an offender for a crime or trespass committed against them, their friends or their family. Prevention and defence is one thing; retaliation is quite another. We think that the law as it stands represents a fair balance between the need for householders to defend themselves and their property and the need for society at large to have confidence in the rule of law.
	The proposals in the Bill have something of the wild west about them—attractive at first sight, but designed for an era of anarchy, "might is right", and everyone for himself. That is why it is important to stress the work that we have done to ensure that the law is enforced effectively by a more substantial police force.

John Hayes: Retaliation implies time, thought, and that someone who has suffered an ill will seek by deliberate intent to inflict an ill on someone else. We are not talking about that, but about someone responding as any citizen would—with immediacy, to defend themselves. Defence and retaliation are two very different things, as the hon. Lady must know. Not everyone is able to escape such situations—many people live on the front line. I appreciate that she has a noble lineage, but most people do not.

Fiona Mactaggart: Those are cheap points, frankly. In fact, I will sign up with those hon. Members who put themselves in the lineage of the retaliators. Only two and a half weeks ago, I was subject to an attempted indecent assault on Clapham common, and it was only because the attempted assailant was the fleeter of foot that he survived without a very substantial thump. If the hon. Gentleman reads the Bill with care, he will see that it would permit retaliation. That is neither necessary nor appropriate in a modern society.
	Hon. Members asked whether Mr. Martin would have been protected by the Bill. He probably would, because he needed only to have shown that he believed, whether reasonably or not, that he was acting in self-defence or in the protection of his property, and that the intruder was a trespasser.
	Following the Martin case, there has been a cloud of confusion about the current state of the law, and some issues remain properly to be remedied. One of those, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) and is addressed in clause 3, is that of civil liability where a householder damages the property of an intruder or kills him. That provision is unnecessary, because we made amendments to the Criminal Justice Act 2003 to ensure that householders and other victims of crime are not subjected to unjustified claims for damages where they have acted reasonably and proportionately in self-defence against a perceived or actual threat. That means that any claim can proceed only in strictly defined circumstances with the express permission of the court, and would not succeed unless the court was satisfied that the householder's actions had been grossly disproportionate.
	Those provisions were carefully considered and accepted by Parliament, and they came into force on 20 January. We believe that they represent a sensible and proportionate response to concerns in this area, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned. In addition, the Lord Chancellor has directed the Legal Services Commission to consult on tightening up the rules to ensure that offenders would not be entitled to legal aid to pursue their victims in such circumstances. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be reassured that that aspect of the Bill is not required.
	The proposed Bill would give a person virtual immunity from prosecution for any act done by him if he believed, "whether reasonably or not", that he was acting in self-defence or that he was acting to preserve property, to apprehend a wrongdoer or to prevent a crime, and believed—again, "whether reasonably or not"—that the other person was a trespasser. That is certainly a step too far. We must all be responsible for our actions, and be prepared to answer for those actions if necessary. That is justice. When there was a clearly disproportionate response to an incident, where someone was seriously injured or killed, no responsible person would want to find that the perpetrator did not have to answer for those actions before a jury.
	It is for a jury to decide whether someone is acting reasonably or unreasonably and whether their actions are proportionate and justifiable or not. To allow someone to use any means to defend themselves could include, for example, being able to use weapons to kill an intruder. That would clearly be a disproportionate and unreasonable response to an unarmed burglar. It would grant someone a licence to kill with impunity. We do not hang burglars in this day and age, and we certainly would not be happy to suggest that prospective burglars could or should be shot with impunity. They should be pursued with the full force of the law.
	I know that in some cases people feel that the law is not protecting them, and that is what has led to this proposal. We need to make sure that the law is operating as it should, but putting householders beyond its reach would not help the law to protect them. Rather, it would create an acceptance of lawlessness and a spiral of violence and retaliation that would make the situation worse. It would create a situation in which people felt that they had to go armed in order to protect themselves. That cannot be what we want to achieve.
	We would rather pursue an approach that depends on more robust policing and more effective support for the victims of crime. The sense that there is nothing that victims can do is in many ways disabling, and it is one of the things that has led to the introduction of the Bill. As the hon. Member for North Thanet suggested, we need to address the underlying perception—which we do not believe to be well founded—that the criminal justice system has shifted so that the criminal, rather than the real victim, is seen as the victim.
	That is why we have taken so many substantial steps to support victims. A conference for victims was held for the first time this week, and we have introduced legislation that puts victims at the heart of the criminal justice system, including the Criminal Justice Act 2003, the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and the new Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill. They are all designed to protect victims more effectively.
	We also need to remember too that not everyone who enters private property does so with criminal intent. This law could allow a householder to take action against small boys who are looking for a lost football, against an unsuspecting and unrecognised deliveryman, or against anyone rash enough to set foot on their property, even for a completely legitimate purpose. Members of the House would need to take care when they were next on the campaign trail. The hon. Member for Broxtowe suggested that all of us who spend time in our constituents' gardens could face violent action from a constituent. I do not believe that the constituents of Slough are of the type to which he referred, but we could face that risk if they thought that we were trespassing.
	This Bill would give them complete impunity and thus represent a step backwards for democracy. It goes too far. The law already enables people to act reasonably in self-defence, or in defence of their property. However, such a provision—
	It being half-past Two o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
	Debate to be resumed on Friday 14 May.

Remaining Private Members' Bills
	 — 
	ORGAN DONATION (PRESUMED CONSENT AND SAFEGUARDS) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.
	To be read a Second time on Friday 14 May.

WILD MAMMALS (PROTECTION) AMENDMENT (NO. 2) BILL

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Hon. Members: Object.
	Debate to be resumed on Friday 21 May.

LOCAL LAND CHARGES (FEES) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.
	To be read a Second time on Friday 18 June.

ASPERGER'S SYNDROME

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Ms Bridget Prentice.]

David Lidington: I am grateful for this opportunity to raise the case of Piers Bolduc, the son of my constituents, Eugene and Cris Bolduc, and to press the Government about Mr. Bolduc's case and about some of the wider lessons that we may learn as regards the treatment of people with Asperger's syndrome within our secure mental hospitals.
	It is now 10 years since Eugene and Cris Bolduc first came to see me. The case of their son, Piers, is tragic. He is now 28 years old, and he has been detained in secure mental institutions for a decade. His childhood, family and school life seemed normal, although with hindsight, it can be recognised that he showed some of the characteristics typical of Asperger's syndrome, such as finding it hard to socialise with other people.
	The real problems for Piers started at about the age of 16, while he was studying for his GCSE examinations. At the age of 17, Piers was first prescribed neuroleptic drugs, which as the Minister will well know, are intended for the treatment of schizophrenia and other comparable mental conditions, and not for the treatment of Asperger's. By this stage, Piers was showing increasing symptoms of confusion and an inability to cope with normal society—classic features of Asperger's syndrome. His ability to cope with life was being made worse by the inappropriate drug treatment that he was being given.
	While on a course of this drug treatment, Piers travelled alone to High Wycombe and a violent incident took place in which Piers slashed a young man with a penknife. I do not for one moment, and nor would the family, wish to minimise the importance of this event, and particularly the impact on the victim. It also needs to be recorded that the victim's life was not in danger, although he did need stitches in his back.
	Piers was later charged with grievous bodily harm with intent. At a hearing at Reading Crown court, he pleaded not guilty on grounds of insanity. That defence was accepted by the jury and Piers was acquitted and then sectioned under section 41 of the Mental Health Act 1983.
	The history thereafter is an unhappy one. Initially, Piers was held on remand at Reading prison. After lobbying from his family, in which they enlisted my support, he was transferred to a private psychiatric unit at Stockton Hall in Yorkshire. There, he was wrongly diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia and once again injected with drugs that were completely inappropriate to his condition.
	According to his parents, Piers was locked in a room for eight months while at Stockton Hall, with only a mattress on the floor rather than a bed. No activities or recreations were provided for him and he had no access to radio or television.
	The following year, in June 1995, Piers was transferred to Broadmoor. There, in 1996–97, Dr. Lorna Wing finally diagnosed Asperger's syndrome. Few people would claim that a secure mental hospital is the best environment for the treatment of people with Asperger's. By 2001, Piers's then doctor, Dr. Vermeulen, had told his parents that the hospital wished to transfer Piers to a more appropriate environment where he could finally receive the treatment that would help his condition. In November 2001, Broadmoor began to assess his suitability for transfer to the Eric Shepherd unit in Watford. That transfer proved not to be possible but by 2003 attention was centring on the Hayes unit in Gloucestershire.
	It is important to make it clear that the Hayes unit would not, as a matter of principle, have accepted Piers Bolduc as a patient if he had still been considered to be a danger to other people. The fact that the transfer has been in preparation for a number of years indicates a recognition on the part of the NHS, which is responsible for Piers's care, that he no longer appears to pose the threat that he may once have posed.
	On 15 December last year, Dr. Julie Hollyman, chief executive of the West London Mental Health NHS Trust—responsible for Broadmoor hospital—wrote to me about the case, saying:
	"I can confirm that it is the clinical opinion that Mr. Bolduc is now ready to move from Broadmoor High Secure Hospital to the Hayes Unit."
	On 19 December last year, Mr. Shaun Brogan, chief executive of the Vale of Aylesbury primary care trust, wrote to me that
	"the PCT have committed to Piers' future care after discharge from Broadmoor".
	So there would appear to be no clinical or financial obstacle to that long overdue transfer, but still the family wait.
	My understanding is that the transfer needs to be authorised by the Home Office. The family have been pressing both Broadmoor and the Home Office for that to happen, but it seems that, despite all previous correspondence, Broadmoor did not formally contact the Home Office until March 2004, after considerable pressure from Piers's family. It is known that, as of today, no reply has been received from the Home Secretary's office.
	If Piers Bolduc had been convicted of a crime and been disposed of through the criminal justice system, perhaps by way of a custodial sentence, it would have been over years ago and he would rightly have been rehabilitated by now. It is an indication of something seriously amiss with the way in which our country deals with people like Piers Bolduc that, after more than a decade, we should still be talking about this young man, incarcerated in an institution like Broadmoor, having had a history of misdiagnosis and mistreatment. He has been let down badly by the system.
	May I ask the Minister a couple of direct questions about Piers's case? Can he confirm that there is no clinical or financial obstacle to Piers's transfer to the Hayes unit? Can he say what progress his Department and the relevant trust have made with the Home Office towards authorising that transfer? Will he undertake to press his colleagues in the Home Office, in view of the history that I have recounted, to deal with the case as swiftly as humanly possible?
	This case raises wider questions about the treatment in secure mental hospitals of people with Asperger's syndrome. Piers Bolduc's detention in Broadmoor has probably cost taxpayers in the region of £2 million so far for that 10 years, in part for the wrong sort of treatment in the wrong sort of institution. I therefore have several issues to put to the Minister, to which I hope that he will be able to respond during this short debate or, if time does not permit, take advice on so that he can write to me later in greater detail.
	First, will the Minister comment on the legality of holding people with Asperger's syndrome under the Mental Health Act 1983? My understanding is that a report by the National Autistic Society back in 1996, instigated by the three special hospitals, suggested that Asperger's syndrome was not actually a mental disorder under the meaning of that term as laid down in the 1983 Act. If that is so, it raises serious issues about the detention of not only Piers Bolduc, but a fair number of other people. I hope that the Government will make their view on that clear.
	Secondly, can the Government say how many people with Asperger's syndrome are being detained under the provisions of the 1983 Act? In a written answer to me of 10 November 2003, the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton) told me that the Government did not have that information. The Government should have had that information and, if they did not have it then, they ought to have found it out by now. The Government should inquire into the number of patients with Asperger's syndrome who have been misdiagnosed, as was the case with Piers Bolduc, and given the wrong treatment.
	I should make it clear that my aim, and that of Piers's family, is not to point fingers at people who may have taken incorrect decisions in the past. Rather, we want to establish the truth about what is happening in our secure mental hospitals now, and about the scale of the problem, so that we can understand what steps need to be taken to put matters right.
	Thirdly, what action are the Government taking to improve the quality of training in the management of Asperger's for the staff at secure mental hospitals? It was two or three years after Piers's arrest before he was diagnosed as having Asperger's at all, despite the fact that his parents had raised that possibility at an earlier stage. Even after that diagnosis, the family expressed to me serious concerns that not all the staff responsible for Piers's care really knew how to deal with a case of Asperger's syndrome. They also commented to me that internal communications between staff from different disciplines often appeared to be lacking.
	Fourthly, are the Government reviewing the quality of care available at secure hospitals for people with Asperger's? In a letter to me of 8 February, the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Doncaster, Central stated:
	"The normal practice is to allow increasing freedom within the grounds of the hospital followed by escorted visits into the community and to a possible placement."
	However, on the information given to me by the family, despite the fact that Piers was approved as ready for transfer three years ago, none of that happened in their son's case until November last year. Coincidentally, that was after critical reports of Piers's treatment were published in The Sunday Telegraph and broadcast on Radio 4's "Woman's Hour". All that has apparently happened since then is that Piers was allowed to prepare and cook a pizza for himself in the Broadmoor kitchen and has been on two day visits to the Hayes unit. That seems to fall a long way short of what that Minister suggested to me should be the normal regime for a patient being prepared for transfer.
	Finally, will the Minister and the Government accept the principle that families ought to be part of a process of healing and readjustment to life outside mental institutions? For me, the most distressing aspect of this case is Mr. and Mrs. Bolduc's feeling of exclusion from their son's life. In fairness, Broadmoor hospital says that such exclusion is at Piers's request, but that, in turn, is based on the hospital's insistence that he is capable of taking that decision himself and is not influenced by the staff. Of course, the people who have assessed him as competent to take that decision are the staff of the very hospital that is the subject of the complaint.
	As the Minister will recall, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) raised this issue, among others, with him in an Adjournment debate on 10 September last year. It is utterly wrong if families feel that they are being pushed out and excluded from contact with relatives detained under mental health legislation, rather than being engaged in and involved with a programme of healing and rehabilitation.
	I hope that the Minister can tell me that, after 10 years, a new life is at last ready for Piers Bolduc to start. But I hope, too, that his tragic case will serve as a lesson—not just to the Government but to us all—that we need to do far more to ensure that people with Asperger's syndrome in our secure mental institutions are given the standard of care and treatment that they are entitled to.

Stephen Ladyman: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) for securing this debate and for discussing a subject that, as he doubtless knows, is very close to my heart. I also thank him for raising the specific case of Mr. Piers Bolduc, who, as he says, has Asperger's syndrome and is currently in Broadmoor hospital. The hon. Gentleman has raised some interesting issues that we will certainly need to explore further if the House introduces new mental health legislation, for example, as is intended. If I fail to address any of the issues that he has asked me about, they will certainly be dealt with in a letter.
	The parents of Piers Bolduc have been unstinting in trying to secure a placement for him in a centre that cares specifically for people with Asperger's syndrome, and in which they believe his particular needs can be better addressed. I should say at the outset that it is very sad if they feel excluded from the process in any way. We should learn lessons from that, and it should not happen. That said, Mr. Bolduc has rights as an adult, and I shall talk about them and what they prevent me from saying a little later. It is clear from what the hon. Gentleman said that we need to do more to square the circle and to make sure that parents feel that they have an input and are being listened to, even if we cannot always act on their wishes because we have to act on those of another party.
	I care greatly about improving the experience of people with Asperger's syndrome and of everyone on the autistic spectrum, the vast majority of whom, of course, do not need such highly specialised help as Mr. Bolduc. I shall talk about Mr. Bolduc's case, which involves a person affected by Asperger's syndrome being detained in a secure mental hospital, in a moment or two. First, I want to say a few words about the recognition of Asperger's syndrome in the criminal justice system, and about high secure hospitals.
	I must stress that people affected by autistic spectrum disorders, including Asperger's syndrome, do not normally pose any risk to society at large. I am aware of no evidence of any significant association between autism and criminal offending. In fact, because of the nature of autism and the very rigid way in which many people with autistic spectrum disorders tend to keep to "rules and regulations", they are often more law abiding than the general population. It would be a tragedy, and grossly unfair, if anyone inferred from my comments any suggestion that people on the autistic spectrum are a threat or are routinely dangerous. The hon. Gentleman will doubtless join me in that sentiment. Indeed, people with learning disabilities, including autism, are over-represented among the victims rather than perpetrators of crime. In 1999, Mencap reported that 21 per cent. of the people with learning disabilities that they surveyed had been subject to physical attacks in the previous year. Although research in this field is limited, naivety and a lack of social understanding are likely to increase the vulnerability to crime of people with autistic spectrum disorders.
	However, some people with autism—in common with some people from every other group in society—sometimes either break the law or are suspected of or accused of breaking the law. When that happens, fair treatment for them is often dependent on the involvement of people—in the police force, the courts or the prisons—who understand autistic spectrum disorders. Before I became a Minister, I was the chairman of the all-party group on autism, and I have long been keen to see steps taken to improve autism awareness in the criminal justice system. I remain keen and I am pleased to say that some progress is being made.
	The Youth Justice Board and the Magistrates Association have arranged a joint conference in July this year to raise awareness of mental health issues and autistic spectrum disorders among magistrates and judges. That conference will also give youth panel chairs and justices' clerks an opportunity to hear about policy developments and learn about the roles and responsibilities of agencies involved in providing services for young people.
	Progress is also being made to improve autism awareness among police officers. Probationary police officers receive autism awareness training and are taught to recognise the condition as part of their two-year training programme. In addition, when they receive training in investigative interviewing they are given a detailed briefing on conditions, including autism, that could affect communication or that might mean witnesses being easily intimidated. Throughout their training they are reminded that the skills that they have learned may also be needed when dealing not only with witnesses but with criminals and members of the public.
	As the hon. Gentleman will know, responsibility for prison health was transferred from the Home Office to the Department of Health from 1 April 2003 and I am the Minister responsible for prison health. I certainly appreciate, and the prison health team also appreciates, that autistic spectrum disorders and learning disabilities may well be under-diagnosed in the prison population.
	The Prison Service, Prison Health and the Youth Justice Board share a commitment to the provision of better specialist health and mental health services for offenders. To give practical effect to that, they have jointly appointed a programme manager for juvenile health. Among the benefits expected from the creation of the post is a greater understanding of the nature and prevalence of all conditions, including autism. That should, in turn, lead to an increased emphasis on the diagnosis and assessment of such conditions at establishment level and the commissioning, by primary care trusts, of appropriate services to meet the needs identified.
	One of the first projects being undertaken by the new programme manager for juvenile health is the development of a health strategy for juveniles. The extent to which autism may be a significant problem in individual prison establishments would be expected to emerge from the regular health needs assessments undertaken jointly by prisons and their NHS partners.
	I fully acknowledge that people on the autistic spectrum, at all ages, are at above-average risk of developing mental health problems. That makes it particularly important to consider what steps should be taken for people with autism to ensure early intervention when mental health problems arise.
	Making an accurate psychiatric diagnosis of people with Asperger's syndrome is a complex process. Features of the syndrome, such as disturbances of communication, obsessionality and preoccupations, can be mistaken for—or, indeed, merge into—mental ill health. That is exactly what happened with Mr. Bolduc. Secure psychiatric hospitals provide care and treatment for people detained under mental health legislation and who are considered to require such care and treatment in secure conditions. That could, for example, be because they are considered to present a potential threat to themselves or others or might abscond if detained in open conditions. They will include mentally disordered offenders and patients who have proved unmanageable in non-secure conditions. If an individual with Asperger's syndrome is considered sufficiently dangerous, he or she will be admitted to a high security hospital until their condition improves enough for them to be managed in a lower level of security.
	I know that many hon. Members are concerned about how many current residents at secure mental hospitals have been assessed as having Asperger's syndrome. It is one of the questions that the hon. Gentleman asked me. A few years ago, the Department of Health funded the National Autistic Society to undertake a specific piece of work in this area. Entitled "A Preliminary Study of Individuals with Autistic Spectrum Disorders in Three Special Hospitals in England", it was published in 1999. The report arose from concern among professionals in special—now called high secure—hospitals in England to establish the number of people with an autistic spectrum disorder who were detained in their care under mental health legislation and whether such settings were appropriate. It is available on the National Autistic Society website.
	The report identified that there were then 31 individuals with autistic spectrum disorders, of whom 21 were thought to have Asperger's syndrome. Mr. Bolduc would have been a resident in Broadmoor at the time that survey was done. It concluded that
	"individuals with autistic spectrum disorders form only a small proportion of all those in the special hospitals".
	It is worth noting that the report's conclusions also stated that the
	"possibility of the presence of an autistic spectrum disorder should always be considered when assessing offenders in special hospitals."
	I am sure we all agree that the relatively small proportion of people affected does not make it any less important to get it right for the people concerned. The important thing is to do all we can to improve services.
	The transition from high secure care to conditions of lesser security can be a difficult one for many individuals and needs careful handling. A patient may move out of a high security hospital either on transfer to a less secure hospital or on discharge into the community. The first step would usually be for the patient's responsible medical officer, in consultation with his clinical team, to decide that the patient no longer needs to be detained for care and treatment in conditions of high security.
	If the decision is that the patient nevertheless still requires care and treatment in a hospital setting for their mental disorder but that it can safely be provided at a lower level of security, the responsible medical officer or clinical team will seek to identify a suitable alternative placement. The doctor or clinical team at the receiving hospital will need to agree that transfer is appropriate, and the relevant PCT commissioner's agreement to fund the placement will need to be obtained. If the necessary agreements are obtained but a vacancy in the receiving facility is not immediately available, the patient may be placed on a waiting list for admission.
	I come to Mr. Piers Bolduc's present situation. I must say at this point that I am limited in what I feel I can say about the specific case. Mr. Bolduc has advised, through his clinicians at Broadmoor hospital, that he does not wish personal details of his case to be discussed publicly. Mr. Bolduc is an adult and has the capacity and right to make such decisions, and there is no reason why that request should not be respected in full. I make no criticism of the hon. Gentleman, because I know that he represents the views of Mr. Bolduc's parents and has their permission to put in the public domain the information that he gave. However, that does not mean to say that I may do so, given that I have Mr. Bolduc's instructions.
	I can tell the House, however, that it was following Mr. Bolduc's transfer from Stockton Hall hospital to Broadmoor hospital in 1995 that a diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome was confirmed. A programme of therapy and rehabilitation was put in place and has progressed to the point that the clinical team and Mr. Bolduc himself now feel that he is ready for transfer to an alternative, specialist unit. A unit run by an organisation with specialist expertise has been identified, which offers assessment and treatment for people with Asperger's syndrome. In respect of Mr. Bolduc's request for privacy, it is not appropriate to confirm the name of the unit or its location. This unit is well equipped to support Mr. Bolduc with the level of support, safety and security that he both requires and seeks.
	All necessary clinical assessments have been undertaken as part of the referral process and Mr. Bolduc has been accepted for transfer to the unit, as soon as a place becomes available. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be somewhat reassured by that. The necessary transfer agreements are also being pursued by Broadmoor hospital with the Home Office. My understanding is that all involved parties, including Mr. Bolduc's parents, are in agreement that it is in fact the most appropriate placement. Unfortunately it is not possible to say precisely when the transfer can take place, as that is dependent on availability of a bed, although it is anticipated that this should be in the coming months. As the hon. Gentleman requested, I am happy to liaise with colleagues at the Home Office to ensure that there are no undue delays. While Mr. Bolduc remains at Broadmoor hospital, his current therapeutic programme will continue with the aim of developing the skills required both for his next placement and beyond.
	Finally, I should like to stress again that the vast majority of people with autism or Asperger's syndrome do not present a risk to society because of their condition. We have been discussing very rare cases. However, when people with ASD, such as Mr. Bolduc, do come in contact with the criminal justice system, they are entitled to interact with people who understand their condition and act appropriately. That is what we are trying to put in place across the board, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will accept that progress is being made and that I am committed to keeping up the pace of reform and to improving services for people with Asperger's. I will do all I can to ensure that Mr. Bolduc's transfer takes place as expeditiously as possible and that the matter is dealt with quickly.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at Three o'clock.